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Mistress Barbara 


CHAPTER I 

THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 

T HE road from Ling Crag village out to Colne, a 
sad and lonely road at most times, showed 
fairer than its wont this February afternoon. 
For the winter had been short, as moor-winters go, and 
there was delicate promise of spring already in the slow- 
changing tints of ling and lean marsh grasses and rusty 
last-year’s bracken. February Fill-dyke they called the 
month, but its name was little merited this year; for the 
last fortnight had been dry and crisp, and the sun had 
regained a little strength, and the throstles, farther 
down among the valleys, had found good heart again. 
Solitary as the land was, and remote from such tenderer 
glimpses of the spring as the sheltered gardens show, 
there was the throb of waking life beneath its harshness, 
the stir and lusty fret of Nature’s motherhood. No 
snow-drops blew, maiden supplicants at wild winter’s 
feet; no celandines, to promise richer glory of the teem¬ 
ing May; but the bilberry spikes were knobbed with 
green, and some of them were crimson all down their 
bare hard stems—the crowberry leaves were brighter 

i 


2 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


green—the larks, which are the moor’s own minstrels, 
were bethinking them of songs forgotten through the 
long months of snow. A starveling ewe sat under a 
scarce-budding thorn, and bleated fitfully. And the 
sky was a fleece of God’s own weaving, with the many- 
coloured weft of purple, crimson, and green-blue, spun 
light into the grey, fair-weather woof of cloud. 

Yet it was lonely here, and the road, pointing like 
a gnarled finger at the farther reaches of the heath, 
seemed only to deepen and interpret their stark, self- 
centred barrenness. Snow, too, was laid like lawn up 
every wrinkle, every dene and rugged cleft, and here 
and there a three-foot drift still lingered at the 
roadside, keeping the surface wet and greasy for a 
horse’s hoofs. Now and then a plover wheeled, crying 
from the higher land, drowning the lark’s song as it 
passed. A winter that was slow to go, and a spring 
that was chary of its incoming—no day could have 
shown to better purpose the temper of the moor, no day 
could have matched more truly the temper of the horse¬ 
man riding slowly west toward Lancashire. 

Straight in the saddle he sat, his head held fairly up 
to meet the world; his face held room, one would have 
said, for kindliness and faith in fellowship, and mellow 
humour,—which are the spring-winds of man’s wintry 
life,—but his mood seemed far from any softer feeling. 
From the cleft beneath his thick straight brows to the 
line of his hard-set mouth he carried the marks of one 
who looked for hardness in the world and was prepared 
to meet it with no less; and by and by, when the 
larks’ bravery was drowned afresh by the over-wheeling 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


3 


peewits, he nodded up as if in greeting to them. He 
liked these lonely, never-resting birds, whose cry is 
Ishmael’s cry, whose heart is Ishmael’s heart; for he, 
like they, was following a friendless road, and the wry 
aloofness of a life apart was growing like a wall be¬ 
tween himself and all who chanced across his path. He 
rode more slowly still as he came by Sorrowful Water, 
and marked how strange a mirror it held up to the un¬ 
couth face of the land. A light breeze roughened the 
outer rim of water, but in the middle it was still and 
smooth, with bearded rise, and snowy cleft, and dap¬ 
pled, pearl-strung sky reflected to a wonderland of 
softer tones. On this side its edge was level with the 
road; beyond it lay in rounded bays and inlets, lipping 
the great rise of moor that gave it shelter. 

“ Ay, so—and up yonder is Dead Lad's Rigg—and 
down below is bonnie Wyecollar. Lord, how I loved 
it as a lad! ” the horseman muttered, and plucked 
his rein impatiently. 

He did not halt again until the Herders Inn was 
reached—a low, silent tavern, which seemed rather a 
bit of the harsh land about it than a house of cheer for 
travellers upon the road. A mistal stood at the one 
end, and the fields behind looked scarcely leaner than 
the heath itself. On the roadway in front, a cart was 
drawn up, laden with bales of uncombed wool, and the 
team was fogged with sweat. The horseman tied his 
bridle to the ring that hung on a rusty chain beside the 
door, stopped for a moment to handle a fleece that was 
showing through a rent in its sack, laughed at the 
instinct with a shade of bitterness, and went indoors. 


4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


He had turned wool into gold these fifteen years past, 
but even yet he did not like the trade, nor felt one touch 
of pride in it. 

“ Hi, Lavrock! ” he called, striding into the bar with 
the air of a man who comes on business and measures 
time in a nice balance. 

There was a crunch of footsteps along the sanded 
passage, a surly “ Lig thee dahn, tha food,” following a 
dog’s twice-repeated growl, and then a rough-headed 
fellow pushed his way into the bar. 

“ Morning to ye, Maister Royd. Ye’re ahead o’ th’ 
clock, I’m thinking,” he said, half touching his slouch 
hat. 

“ We have to be these times, if we mean to win bread 
and butter for the next day’s meal. Where are those 
sheep of yours, Lavrock? ” 

The other pulled his pipe out and leaned against the 
mantel while he lit it. “ Lord save us, your father war 
niver known to be i’ a hurry save he war riding to 
hounds,” he growled. “What ails ye, Maister Royd? 
Willun’t th’ sheep bide while I bring ye a sup o’ rum? ” 

“ The rum must wait. There’s money in my pockets 
here, Lavrock, and you sent for me to drive a bargain.” 

A teamster was sitting in one corner of the bar with 
a plate of bread and cheese before him. Lavrock 
glanced at him, and then at Royd. “ Well, if ye’re so 
minded, ye can see th’ sheep this varry minute,” he 
said, moving out into the passage. 

They went along the road in silence, and in at the 
gateway on their left. “ I wodn’t hev yonder carter 
chap know what I’d come to,” said Lavrock, with a jerk 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


5 


of the head towards the tavern. “ Pride’s pride, an’ Eve 
my place to keep wi’ customers, an’ they’ll be saying th’ 
Herders is going downhill if they know why ye rade 
fro’ Ling Crag Miln this morn.” 

“You want money down?” said Royd, cold as he 
always was when a bargain had to be driven. “ It’s 
ill work, they say, buying wool before it’s grown.” 

“ Ye’ll tak your price for th’ risk,” answered the 
other grimly. “ Ay, ye’ll tak your price, for even on th’ 
Lancashire side they say Stephen Royd is hard to traffic 
wi’. Well, here are th’ sheep: I’ve getten ’em penned 
all ready for ye.” 

Royd counted them, handled their wool—the long 
wool on their backs, and the short that grew on the 
underside of the neck—all with the same impassive si¬ 
lence. The tavern-keeper leaned against the pinfold 
wall and chewed a straw, and watched the business 
through. 

“ Ye tak to’t like a duck to water,” he said. “ ’Tis 
plain to be seen ye’ve getten summat i’ ye, Maister 
Royd, that your father niver taught ye.” 

The other winced a little, but made no answer, only 
went on counting up the tale of wool that was to be 
told at the next shearing-time. 

“ An’ to think I handled ye when ye war a babby— 
an’ taught ye how to snare a grouse when ye war a 
little lad,” began the old man. 

Royd turned from the pinfold, and looked stead¬ 
ily into the other’s face. “ Ay, and I bear old days 
in mind,” he said —“ after a bargain’s driven. I’ll give 
you twenty guineas for this year’s wool, Lavrock.” 


6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


He could see by Lavrock’s air, by the very way he 
shifted his feet about instead of planting them wide 
apart, firmly and obstinately, that he was no hand at a 
bargain; and he named a price that was less by ten 
guineas than a surer front would have secured. 

Lavrock shortened the wet end of his straw, restored 
it to its place, and glanced wistfully at his lean flock. 

“ Mak’ it five-an’-twenty,” he said, with little assur¬ 
ance in his voice. 

Royd buttoned up his pocket, which he had already 
opened temptingly. “ I never go back on my price. 
Take it or leave it,” he said. 

“ We’ll call it two-an’-twenty, an’ th’ bargain’s still 
on your side.” 

“ Your wool is worth twenty guineas to me, and not 
a shilling more,” said the other, half turning on his 
heel. “ Well, Lavrock? ” 

“ Show us th’ brass, then, an’ let’s get to our drink¬ 
ing. Ye can count it on this gate-stun here.” 

Royd took out his leathern bag, untied the well-worn 
bit of string that fastened it, and laid down the sover¬ 
eigns one by one upon the stone. Then, the business 
over, his manner changed upon the sudden, as he crossed 
the untidy yard and glanced down the close-cropped 
fields. He knew the scene by heart: the wild line of 
Dead Lad’s Rigg, brown, steep and ragged; Wyecollar 
Dene, lying snug within the deep fold of the hills, and 
sheltered from every wind that blew except the west; 
far to the right, old Pendle Hill, that pushed its round 
head into cloudland and slept a giant’s sleep, secure in 
its brute majesty; beyond, the snow-seamed lesser 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


7 


ridges, with their long backs raking from saffron east to 
ruddy, purpling west. By heart he knew it all, he had 
learned his poaching here, had learned the ways of 
snipe and moor-cock, trout and hare and fox; the way 
the bees swarmed in summer-time, and how to take 
them in the hive; had felt the eerie glamour of the Dene 
below, whose every wrinkle, every bush and warren, 
was known to him. And the old Hall there, with its 
roystering, luckless line of Cunliffes—had he not felt his 
boy’s heart fail him, as he wandered in and out among 
the ruins, and hearkened for the Ghostly Huntsman, 
and heard the legendary folk come back to life again 
and rustle up and down the oaken stairs? 

His face was softened when at last he turned about. 
“ It’s long since I saw the Dene yonder—how long, 
think ye, Lavrock? ” he said. 

“ Mony a year, I reckon; more’s the pity. An’ more’s 
the pity, say I, that ye’ve ta’en to trade, though ye do 
frame weel at th’ job. Why, Maister Royd, ’tis six 
miles an’ better fro’ here to th’ Heights, yet I mind 
when your father could ride all th’ way fro’ there to 
here, an’ scarce be out o’ sight of one farm or another 
that he owned. Ay, he war all for land, he war—” 

“ And lost it through keeping open house and open 
wine-taps,” put in Royd; “ and left me at sixteen to find 
a living for myself. See, Lavrock, I’d rather let old 
troubles lie.” 

“ It’s weel when troubles will lie,” struck in the other, 
moving shiftlessly to Royd’s side and looking down 
upon the Dene. “ They war always up an’ busy, war 
troubles, when th’ Cunliffes dwelled down yonder. An’, 


8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


by that token, tlT owd Squire war hunting last neet, for 
I heard him/’ 

“ What ? Squire Emmott down at Lanshaw 
Brigg?” 

“ Squire Cunliffe o’ Wyecollar. Who else goes hunt¬ 
ing hereabouts by neet? ” 

“ He’s old for hunting, Lavrock,” laughed Royd, 
glancing at the other’s sober, weather-wrinkled face. 

“ Middling. He died a matter o’ two hundred year 
ago, I’m telled: but he’s spry at the job still, is th’ 
Squire o’ Wyecollar.” 

Royd turned toward the inn. “ You’re a fool,” he 
said impatiently. “ Leave boggarts to the old wives, 
Lavrock.” 

“ Axing your pardon, sir, ’tis a matter o’ where ye 
bide, I fancy,” said Lavrock, showing a firm front at 
last. “Ye live wi’ wool nowadays, an’ there’s folk 
about ye neet an’ day: but here it’s different-like. Look 
ye! ” he broke off, pointing up the deep-lipped dingle, 
“ I’ve lived nigh th’ Dene yonder, man an’ boy, these 
three-score year, an’ I found it quiet—fearful quiet. 
Ye’ll hear a peewit now an’ again; an’ if ye listen, on a 
windless day, ligging ear to ground, ye’ll hear th’ sheep 
nibbling th’ grass; but varry little else ye’ll hear. Well, 
it teaches a man summat—summat he’ll niver learn fro’ 
wool, save an’ except he lives where th’ wool grows.” 

“ That may be,” said Royd slowly; “ I call to mind 
how once you taught me, Lavrock, to shiver at the 
Huntsman. So he was abroad last night ? ” 

“ Ay, was he. The wind gat up fro’ the north-west, 
it mud be four o’ th’ clock, an’ wakened me wi’ its 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


11 

Royd laughed, with the memory of other days still 
strong upon him. “ Treat him well, Lavrock, and keep 
suspicion off, for old sake’s sake; for Tim and I were 
thick together as lads, and you taught both of us the 
way of night excursions.” 

All roads of talk, it seemed, lay towards Squire 
Cunliffe this afternoon; and this out-of-elbows rogue, 
nursing a broken arm at a wayside inn, led Lavrock 
to return to the topic Royd most wished to escape. 

“ Did ye iver fathom,” asked the innkeeper, stooping 
to pick a fresh straw from the road, “ what link there 
is ’twixt Tim an’ owd Squire Cunliffe? ” 

“ What link should there be? You’ve a long tongue 
for such a littlish body, Lavrock.” 

“ Well, I can but hearken when folks talk; an’ there’s 
hardly one comes up here fro’ Ling Crag but hes his 
word to say. Some think Squire’s wise enough to know 
his own child, for he was wildish as a young un they 
say; some reckon Tim helps him wi’ his black magic, 
an’ his turning stones to gold, an’ what all; but Tim 
keeps his mouth as close as a rat-trap wheniver I so 
mich as mention Squire’s name.” 

“ May the Lord send all of us quiet tongues,” said 
Royd gruffly. “ When will that wool be ready for de¬ 
livery, Lavrock ? ” 

“ Nay, that’s as th’ wind shapes,” growled Lavrock, 
who, like all weakish men who strive to pluck a living 
from the highlands, was prone to shift all responsibility 
upon the weather. “ If this promise o’ spring holds 
gooid, we may shear say i’ th’ back-end o’ May. But 
there’s niver no telling.” 


12 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ At any rate, the winter seems fairly over for this 
year. You’ll have a fine lambing season, Lavrock, take 
my word for it.” 

“ Young blood, young blood! Ye put me i’ mind o’ 
Parson, that ye do. Parson war up here yestreen, an’ 
he axed me how things war going. Noan so weel, says 
T: an’ then Parson says, 4 Don’t be downcast, Lavrock,’ 
says he, ‘ God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.’ 

4 Parson,’ says I, looking slantways at him, 4 did ye iver 
go in for sheep-rearing?’ ‘Nay,’ says he. ‘I thowt 
not,’ says I. Sakes, Maister Royd, it fair ruffles me, 
whiles, to hear folk talking o’ what they doan’t under¬ 
stand. Shear i’ June, an’ ye’ll happen get tempered 
winds—happen, mind ye: I wodn’t be sure, not I, for 
I’ve seen snow i’ June myseln.” 

Royd stopped with his hand on the bridle. “ Lav- 
rock,” he said suddenly, “ what’s amiss with you these 
days? The farm and the inn between them paid nicely 
once.” 

“ An’ now nawther on them pay. What’s amiss ? 
Nay, I’ve come in for a slice o’ Cunliffe lucklessness, 
I fancy, through living so nigh their ghosts. One 
thing’s followed another; ten ewes war lost i’ the last 
snow-storm; th’ beasts hev had th’ Evil Eye on ’em, 
an’ willun’t eat nor thrive; trade’s less on th’ road, an’ 
they do say folk stop i’ Lanshaw Brigg nowadays to 
drink i’stead o’ coming here. I’m i’ a bad way, Maister 
Royd, an’ I’m shamed to say as mich to one I dandled 
on my knee.” 

The other was still playing with his bridle. “ Will 
times mend, think ye? ” he said gruffly. 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


!3 


“I reckon they might; ay, even to us owd uns, as 
ought to know better, there’s hope comes wi’ th’ sum¬ 
mer-time. But rent-day’s a sight surer nor summer, an’ 
that’s gospel; an’ I doubt I’ll niver weather th’ next 
rent-taking.” 

Royd got to the saddle, as if impatient to be off. 
“ Come to me at Ling Crag to-morrow; I’ll lend you 
fifty guineas—give them, if you don’t find your feet 
again.” 

“ But you wodn’t gi’e me a shilling more for th’ wool, 
an’ it war worth it,” cried Lavrock, staring blankly at 
him. 

“ Not I,” snapped Royd, “ when I’m buying, what 
do I care if you’re starving in the ditch? It’s not you 
I’m thinking of ; it’s the stuff you have to sell. A loan 
for old time’s sake is the boot on another leg.” 

He had touched his horse with the whip, and had 
started before the host could say another word, or 
stammer out an invitation to a stirrup-cup. 

“ Begow, there’s nowt so queer as folk! ” muttered 
Lavrock. “ An’ him so keen, an’ all, to beat me dahn 
i’ price. But I wodn’t hev whined about bad times to 
th’ lad if I’d knawn how he meant to tak it. Well, 
well, breed tells, I reckon, an’ if trade keeps his one 
pocket buttoned tight, breed oppens t’other. Now, 
where’s yond dog o’ Tim’s? I’d best keep it close to 
th’ house, as Maister Royd says, for seeing th’ dog is as 
gooid as seeing its maister ony day.” 

But the terrier was nowhere to be found; and Lav¬ 
rock, straining his eyes along the road, saw that it 
was trotting close behind Royd’s horse. 


*4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Well, now, I’m capped! ” cried Lavrock. “ TIT 
little bitch mun think she’s lost her maister, like, an’ 
that Maister Royd knows wheer to find him. Eh, but 
they’re rum uns, is dogs—nigh as rum as humans, 
though it’s saying a deal.” 

Royd, meanwhile, rode back along the sand-grey 
stretch of highway—rode slowly, and let the spirit of 
the hour sit by him on the saddle. The glory of the 
failing day was over heath and sky and water, and the 
silence of the hilltops shut out all whispers of a world 
beyond. He was a landless man who remembered well 
what love of land for land’s sake was; he was riding 
over acres that ought to be his own; but the larger 
issues held him for this little hour, and the hills were 
more than the lands they sheltered, the barren ling was 
worthier than pride. 

“ Five years since last I saw it all! ” he muttered. 
“ Five years, and little Barbara not grown to an age to 
vex me then. I taught her how to sit a saddle—she 
tumbled once, down at the hillfoot yonder, and laughed 
when I looked for tears—Lord knows why he robs us 
of our playmates and makes them women for the old 
Adam’s sake.” 

He had passed the quivering marge of Sorrowful 
Water by this, and far ahead he marked the blank 
line of Ling Crag village, the farther round of Marsh- 
cotes moor, with the two upstanding wheels that showed 
where coal lay under its twin-fuel, peat. The terrier 
meanwhile kept discreetly in the rear, just out of reach 
of the hoofs, as if it wished to keep its presence secret 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


15 


until Ling Crag was reached. So deep Royd’s thoughts 
were, and his eyes so lost-among the distances, that he 
did not hear the sound of hoofs until three riders met 
him at the sharp turning of the way. One was Squire 
Cunliffe, another Bancroft, who held his patrimony; 
and on the other side her father rode little Barbara, his 
playmate, grown to dignity. 

“ What, Stephen? We thought ourselves late riders, 
but we have company, it seems,” cried the Squire, 
answering Royd’s bow with the courtliness of an earlier 
and more elaborate day. 

There was obstinacy in Royd, deep as his pride. His 
seclusion from the world of late had been deliberate, 
and yet it irked him to find how blunt he ^as, and 
how the courtesy had rusted in him for want of'contact 
with his kind. It irked him, too, that at heart he felt 
no prouder of his trade than those he talked with; his 
instincts were the Squire’s, sprung from tough rootage 
in the soil; his goal even now was land—alway‘s land 
—and he was reaching it by a road that was little to his 
liking. And so he drew apart a little, as a stranger 
might, and met the old Squire’s stately warmth with 
coldness. 

“ We have to ride far sometimes,” he said, * when 
we go in search of wool. I have just bought for twenty 
guineas, sir, what was worth at least ten more.” 

The Squire was of the rare race of gentlemen who 
refrained, not from rude speech only, but, when he 
could, from the inward treachery of thought that needs 
to hide its nakedness by speech. Yet now he could not 


i6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


keep a frown back, and his face lost a little of its wel¬ 
come; for he had loved this lad, and he had striven again 
and again to lead him into other paths. 

Barbara looked as if she would break the pause that 
followed; but it was Bancroft of the Heights who 
spoke. 

“ Damme, will you come barter for my wool one 
day?” he laughed, with a sneer behind his question. 
“ My bailiff sees to that—and I warrant you will find 
him no milksop at a bargain. Will you buy, Mr. 
Royd?” 

“ If it be worth the buying,” answered Royd quietly. 

Little Barbara was fidgeting with her reins: and the 
pity, touched with shame, with which she glanced at 
Royd seemed more than ever to make her worth a 
strong man’s winning. 

“ The gloaming deepens, father; had we not better 
turn r’ ” she said. 

“ Why, yes, little one,” laughed the Squire, who was 
the tenderest fool in Christendom where Barbara was 
concerned. “ The boggarts might come and snatch you 
else—for they say they love a bonnie maid. Come, 
Stephen, your way is ours, at least as far as Scartop— 
farther if you’ll come and sup with us.” 

“ My thanks, sir, but I must be home by seven. I 
fear it is business, business with me always.” 

Again the Squire frowned. “ We see you over sel¬ 
dom nowadays at Wynyates; I am sorry,” was all he 
said. 

“ Gad, Mr. Royd, why do it? ” broke in Bancroft, as 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


l 7 


he turned his horse about with no good grace. “ What 
the deuce is there in wool to lead a man into a hermit¬ 
age ? As for me, I know less than nothing of the stuff, 
except that it grows on the backs of silly sheep.” 

Then Heaven pity you, Mr. Bancroft, for you have 
much to learn that even I could teach you; ” Barbara’s 
voice was smooth and delicate, but under it there was 
an anger she would not show. 

“ But will you teach me ? ” he took her up. “ I would 
grow as fond of it as Mr. Royd with such tuition.” 

Barbara looked across him, neglecting to resent such 
plough-boy gallantry. “ Is trade good, Mr. Royd?” 
she asked. “ Oh, but I hope it is! For father, though 
he does not like to see a mill, is bound to like selling at 
a good price. Farming would fail up here if it were 
not for sheep, they always say; and so our livelihood 
depends on Mr. Royd, and such as he; does it not, 
father?” 

The Squire glanced quickly at her, and the kindly 
hollows of his face were changed to careworn wrinkles. 
He looked ten years more world-weary than he had 
done a moment since. “ Our livelihood,” he echoed 
harshly; “ why, child, there is more than wool to live 
on, let us hope, though I never sold another fleece.” 

Royd’s mind went back to the uncertain whispers 
that were rife touching the Squire’s pursuit of magic 
and the Philosopher’s Stone; but he dismissed the folly, 
and told himself that Barbara’s father was troubled 
only by her speaking of the debt which all the farming- 
gentry owed to trade. They were at the hillfoot now, 


i8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


where the bridle-track to Wynyates left the main high¬ 
way and crossed the stream that rippled brown from 
Conie Crag Ravine. 

“ So you will not join us, Stephen? ” said the Squire, 
half drawing rein. 

“ It would be kind of you, Mr. Royd,” murmured 
Barbara. 

Bancroft of the Heights had never been at home with 
moorland character; its reticence he could not credit, 
because of the outspoken, simple honesty that hid its 
proud exclusiveness. And so he let few opportunities 
go by of blundering, and thought his own outspoken¬ 
ness was of the same calibre as theirs. 

“ Don’t waste entreaties, Miss Barbara,” he cried. 
“ That glance of yours was thrown away—see, he is 
looking down the valley now and thinking that his 
wool-bags are fairer than your hospitality.” 

Royd bit his lip, and kept back his anger with an 
effort that trade alone had taught him. “ You are an 
indifferent reader of the thoughts, Mr. Bancroft,” he 
said, as if he were snubbing an unruly child. “ I think 
perhaps you have not lived long enough among us yet. 
You are more than kind, sir, to press me,” he broke off, 
turning to the Squire. “ May I ride up after supper, 
for the business that is waiting for me will not 
keep? ” 

“ Better a late guest than none at all—and, as you 
love us, cut short your business, Stephen. Mr. Ban¬ 
croft, do you come with us ? ” 

There was no seconding of the invitation now from 


THE ROAD TO WYECOLLAR 


J 9 


Barbara, although she was wont to be punctilious in 
such matters. 

“ And gladly, though I must run away soon after¬ 
wards, I fear,” said Bancroft noisily. “ My bailiff 
comes to see me every other Thursday evening—and 
I tell him every other Thursday evening that I wish he 
and his tales of crops and herds were sunk under 
Lostwithens Marsh. Faith, I know not whether I hate 
trade or farming more.” 

“ Your wish may be granted one day,” said Royd, 
still with the same cool disregard of the other’s clumsy 
rudeness. “ Suppose the Marsh breaks down the valley 
again as it did long ago ? What a relief it would be for 
one who hates his lands so—to see sheep and cows and 
good green crops go altogether down the stream.” 

“The Heights stand overhigh for that; but your 
wish is charitable, for all that, Mr. Royd—so charitable 
I must acquit you of any envy in the matter.” 

The Squire looked blankly from Royd’s quiet, im¬ 
penetrable face to the other’s scarce-veiled sullenness. 
“ Gentlemen, gentlemen! ” he cried with the self-excus¬ 
ing gentleness which never yet had failed to end dis¬ 
pute. “ Young men talk very foolishly and very 
thoughtlessly. It was a habit of my own, I fancy, once 
on a day—but I have grown beyond it.” 

“ You are the gainer, sir,” said Royd, and lifted his 
beaver, and was turning down the highway when he 
caught sight of an unwashen, guilty looking terrier, 
which had come from underneath his own horse and 
was jumping up to claim attention from the Squire. 


20 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


It was not the dog’s unexpected following of him 
that made Royd stop in wonderment, but the old 
Squire’s agitation as he tossed a greeting to the dog. 

“ Why, that is Tim the Rogue’s dog. Why has she 
followed me, I wonder?” cried Royd. 

“ It—it is strange,” murmured the Squire. “ The 
poor beast seems ill-at-ease, as if—as if she wanted us 
to find her master.” 

“ I’ll take her home with me,” laughed Royd; “ she 
knows that Tim o’ Tabs is never long between visits, 
and to-morrow is his day for bringing combings to the 
mill.” 

“ Yes, to-morrow is his day. To be sure to-morrow 
is his day,” said the Squire absently, as he wheeled 
into the bridle-track. “ I trust that no mischance has 
come to him.” 

But the terrier did not follow Royd, in spite of all 
his whistles; she stuck close as a thistle-burr to Squire 
Cunliffe’s horse, and when the three of them dis¬ 
mounted in the Wynyates courtyard, she followed him 
indoors and hugged his shadow all the evening through. 


CHAPTER II 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 

R OYD thought a little bitterly of Barbara, as he 
rode up to Wynyates House at nine of the 
same evening; and, though it was only in his 
own mind that old companionship had ceased between 
them, the sense of loss was no less strong on him. Sane 
in business, sane in the self-restraint which pressed am¬ 
bition, passion, all desire of ease into the one labour of 
his life, there was yet a morbid underside to the char¬ 
acter he had fashioned for himself—fashioned from the 
tangle of rough-riding, hard-drinking, spendthrift in¬ 
stincts which his fathers had bequeathed him. He 
lacked the power to bend to the little in-and-outs of 
circumstances; he was a shade over-serious to cope with 
the niceties of social intercourse; and, knowing this, he 
magnified the fault, and hid under a mask of unrespon¬ 
siveness what his neighbours could not know for diffi¬ 
dence. Pride, too, had warped his character; he was 
cruelly sensitive to the view which those of his own 
class held of trade, and resented criticism in the same 
breath that he told himself he cared for no man’s good 
or bad opinion. 

So, too, with Barbara. Till lately she had been a 
child, merry and frank and understandable; but soon 


21 


22 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


as she put off the child and met him with the instinctive 
self-withdrawal of the woman who is unused as yet to 
womanhood, he found disastrous changes in her—found 
them because he looked for them, and brought a grave 
and wilful perversity to help him in the search. When 
she reproved him slily for the faults which she was loth 
to see growing so quickly in him, or when, ruffled by 
long coldness on his part, she let her dainty wit flash out 
a moment at him—only to heal the wound of her own 
giving with repentant haste—Royd thought that it was 
his work, and not himself, which she reproved. It was 
natural, he said, that one so delicate as Barbara should 
shrink from a trade that kept a man on the one hand 
counting guineas, on the other testing the feel of greasy 
wool. And yet, though he would not confess it in as 
many words, he knew that half his zest for this same 
work, half his grim, unsmiling love of toil, would van¬ 
ish if he lost all touch of little Barbara. 

He remembered Bancroft of the Heights, and the 
gossip that had linked his name with Barbara’s. Ban¬ 
croft was spruce and debonair—ten years his junior, 
with leisure for studying such trifling arts as pleased 
all women-folk. Would the child have wit to see what 
was plain to Parson Horrocks, plain to himself,—plain 
even to the Squire,—that this gay ruffler, groomed to a 
miracle, was of a very raw gentility as yet? 

Royd let a sigh escape him. He had never thought 
of himself as Barbara’s suitor,—her childhood was too 
near for that,—but he realised to-night, with sharp and 
sudden bitterness, that their old friendship could not 
long go undisturbed. He flicked his horse impatiently, 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 


23 


and the chestnut, roused from his own musings, sprang 
forward, all but unseating his master and carrying him 
at a gallop through Ling Crag village. Another horse¬ 
man passed them at the end of the village, riding in the 
opposite direction, and Royd was glad to see that it was 
Bancroft of the Heights—glad, for he had no wish to 
find him still at Wynyates when he arrived. 

“ You ride for your life, I fancy, Mr. Royd—or is it 
for no more serious thing than love ? ” cried Bancroft 
as he passed. 

“ For neither, Mr. Bancroft,” snapped the other, and 
rode on at the same pace—along the level, and down 
the slack, and half up the steep curve of the road that 
led to Wynyates. 

His horse went slower then perforce, and Royd fell 
into his former train of thought If only Barbara had 
lacked something of her beauty! Friendship between 
them would have been easier then. But, as it was, what 
clod was there, from Ling Crag out to Lanshaw Brigg, 
but did not warm at the mention of her name? It had 
been the same with her mother, and Royd remembered 
still what a stir had gone abroad when Squire Cunliffe, 
over twenty years ago, brought home his bride; such 
daintiness of face and figure was new to the experience 
of the moor-folk, and they had scarce done wondering at 
it when Barbara had grown to a second and a fairer 
marvel in their midst. And now, with half the parish 
over ears in love with Barbara’s comeliness, and the 
other half as deep in love with her soft, unstudied 
charm, what chance had Stephen Royd, who at six- 
and-thirty was already hardening in his shell? 


24 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


He was near the last bend of the roadway now. The 
night was full of stars, with a young moon creeping 
through the moor-mists; and the house of Wynyates 
showed a hospitable gable to him from above. The 
Grey House on the Hill they called it in Ling Crag; yet 
it was only midway up the slope, and, while it met the 
gentler winds and welcomed them, its trees and the top¬ 
most edge of moorland gave it shelter from the worst 
of every storm. Something in the night, something in 
his own unguarded weariness of mood, set softer 
pulses beating in the wayfarer. He would come more 
often to this Grey House on the Hill, he told himself; 
for there was lang-syne kindness there, and peace, and 
courtesy as old-fashioned as the flowers that grew in its 
well-tended garden. A man never set foot within the 
ever open door of Wynyates House but he was glad of 
it; and never left without a sense of the world’s 
worthiness, which warmed him like a stirrup-cup upon 
the road. Why had he shunned it so of late? Royd 
asked himself a dozen times. 

A round deep laugh sounded from behind, and, turn¬ 
ing, he saw a portly figure astride a mare no less well- 
padded round the ribs. 

“ All roads lead to Wynyates, it would seem. Do 
you ride to see the Squire, Stephen ? ” 

“ Good-even, Parson,” cried Royd cheerily, as he 
waited for the other to come up. “ It is not every day 
that one meets better company than one’s own upon 
the road.” 

“ That ever a lad of mv own training should voice 
such barren sentiments! Why, Stephen, I’m younger 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 


25 


at five-and-sixty than you at—what is it?—something 
under forty. Pish, boy! All company is better than 
your own, if you could but know it. So you go to see 
the Squire ? ” 

Royd nodded, laughing at the Parson’s homily. 

“ Well, then, you’re deceitful too as well as misan¬ 
thropic. For you go to see his daughter, Stephen, and 
you know it. What’s the saying? When the moon is 
young, Adam’s folly is but green. See, the moon’s 
peeping over the hill-shoulder at you, Stephen, now, and 
she has surprised a wondrous silly look upon your face.” 

“ The light is treacherous, sir; I’d not rely on it if I 
were you.” 

“ The passion is treacherous, boy; I’d not rely on 
it if I were you. By the breath of the spring that’s 
coming, though, I could wish you nothing better. I 
sometimes fancy you’re half-witted, Stephen, if you’ll 
forgive an old man’s flattery: show you a chance of 
making a shilling into two, and you let nothing stop 
you; but show you a bit of the purest gold that was 
ever minted into woman’s shape, and— Here we are, 
and I’ll let thee knock upon the gate, Stephen, for thy 
fist is growing hardish nowadays.” 

Royd took the Parson’s raps as they were meant, in 
kindly part, and laughed them off. His knocking 
roused an uproar from within the house, a storm of 
sharp barks and petulant, unmannered growls. 

“ The Squire has got a new watch-dog since last I 
came here,” cried Parson Horrocks. “ I don’t know 
that voice at all; it belongs to one of the smaller fry 
of dogland, I warrant—the little pots that are soon hot, 


26 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


as honest Shakespeare has it. Where is old Grip, the 
mastiff, I wonder?” 

“ He will give tongue by and by. You would never 
guess, Parson, what a queer breed of dog is yapping at 
us—no less than that sharp-eyed little beast of Tim o’ 
Tab’s.” 

“ What! Tim’s double?” 

“ Yes, she followed me, Heaven knows why, from 
the Herders Inn to-day; and we met the Squire, and 
after that nothing would please her but she must go 
with him. Get down, lass, down! You’ve rough man¬ 
ners for a gentleman’s house,” he broke off, as the door 
was opened to them, and the terrier came leaping out 
to ask the password from them. 

The Squire came down the passage, calling the dog 
back, and bowed to his guests with formal courtesy. 
He had his hands behind him, and soon as he had held 
out the right in greeting, he hid it out of sight again 
with a curious hurriedness—a trick of his that was as 
well-known to his friends as the fashion of the green 
brass-buttoned coat he wore. Behind him was Barbara, 
with a smile of welcome upon her face. 

“ Ah, Barbara, I give you fair good-even, to match 
your face,” cried Parson Horrocks. “ The old man has 
not to stoop so far as once he had, eh? See Stephen 
glaring at me there, because I’m old enough to kiss you. 
Boy—you’re a fool; the saddest time in a man’s life is 
when he finds he can kiss without offence.” 

“ Fie, sir! to teach such gospel to your flock,” laughed 
Barbara; “ and, please, you must not lift me like a 
child, my dignity—” 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 27 


“ Then little Barbara must not be saucy. Your 
dignity? It is your frock you're thinking of, and I 
have crumpled it. Squire, how long is it since we were 
young? It is monstrous impudent of these young folk 
to prove to us how the years slip by." 

“ Stephen, what ails that dog? ” broke in the Squire, 
not heeding the other’s gaiety. He pointed to the 
terrier, which now was whining at the door, only to 
come back and press against the Squire’s knees and 
look up into his face. “ All evening she has wandered 
up and down like this, as if in search of something.’’ 

Royd glanced shrewdly at the Squire. “ Tim o’ 
Tab’s is lying at the Herders with a broken arm,’’ he 
said; “ the poor beast has lost him somehow, it would 
seem, and thinks to find him here.’’ 

“Yes, it is his night to come here,’’ said Barbara; 
“ they say that dogs are quick as we are to learn a habit, 
and indeed it seems—’’ 

She stopped as her eyes fell on the Squire, who stood 
beside the mantel locking and unlocking the hands that 
were clasped behind his back. 

“ A broken arm ? ’’ he echoed. “ That is bad hearing, 
Stephen. Has the lad been poaching once again? ” 

“ Something of the sort. I did not tell you when we 
met awhile back on the road, because Mr. Bancroft was 
there, and—’’ 

He had no need to put the feeling into words. Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights was not one of them; he did not 
share their view of poaching, and Tim’s secret would 
have been in danger had he known it. 

“ He’s an odd rogue,’’ said Parson Horrocks, “ this 


28 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Tim o’ Tabs. Yet, when I christened him, more years 
ago than I care to remember, he looked as innocent as 
a lamb in spring. But then I named him Timothy—- 
a grave, God-fearing name, mind you—and they ruined 
him by shortening it.” 

“ Yet he works, time and time,” put in Royd. 
“ There’ no man brings better combings to the mill 
than Tim. It has puzzled me to know how he finds 
time or patience for it.” 

The Squire was moving about the room, well-nigh 
as restlessly as the dog that followed him. “ Barbara, 
we must send him a few comforts to-morrow,” he said. 
“ Perhaps—perhaps we might ride that way before the 
week is out.” 

“ I’ll join you, Squire,” cried Parson Horrocks. 
“ The* rascal once got the soft side of my heart, and I’ve 
never since been able to thrust him out.” 

“ We shall be glad. Yes, come with us by all means,” 
said the Squire. But his assent was lukewarm, so it 
seemed to Royd, and his interest in Tim o’ Tab’s a trifle 
keener than simple kindliness demanded. 

The Parson was a matchmaker in his own breezy 
way; and, as he took his snuff-box from the tail of his 
well-worn coat, he glanced at the two whom he was 
wont to call his children, and remembered his own 
young days. 

“ Squire,” he said, applying a pinch to either nostril 
with leisurely enjoyment, “ I’m too old a fogey to rest 
long of an evening without my pipe; I have brought a 
new tobacco, too, to tempt your palate. What say 
you?” 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 


29 


The Squire roused himself. “ I grow forgetful 
Parson—I grow forgetful,” he murmured. “ Come 
Stephen, will you join us? ” 

“ Not he! ” cried Parson Horrocks. “ D’ye think I’ll 
have little Barbara left to nurse her loneliness? 
Stephen, shame on you to think so highly of tobacco; 
I never touched it at your age.” 

With that he bustled his host out into the passage. 
The terrier, not quick enough to follow the Squire, was 
left looking wistfully at the closed door, until Royd 
took pity on her. 

“ We have had all kinds of four-legged guests at 
Wynyates,” laughed Barbara, as he crossed to the 
hearth again, “ but never one so ragged as Tim’s dog, 
I think. No, not that chair, please; it is so long since 
you were here, and I want to see you look at home, 
Stephen,—as—as you used to do.” 

He smiled at the quiet air of command with which 
she pointed to the roomy, padded chair at the far side 
of the hearth; it was so like the old days when she had 
been wont to say to him “ do this,” and see it done. 

“ Now, talk of yourself,” she said, seating herself on 
a footstool opposite and looking up at him with grave 
enquiry. “ You have not been nice of late, Stephen; 
or perhaps you have been too busy. If ”—a vague 
defiance, as of pride, crept into her voice,—“ if you had 
looked happy with it, I should not have asked you for 
the reason.” 

“ Why, child, I’m well enough. A little too much 
work, and a little too much worry; that is all that ails 
me.” 


3 ° 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


She shook her head. “ Do you think I have known 
you all these years and cannot tell when things are all 
amiss with you ? And when I was no higher than your 
knee, Stephen, you did not shut me out, as you are 
doing now, from all that vexed or pleased you. Do 
you remember when you lost everything almost and 
had to begin afresh ? I was fourteen then, and—and I 
think you were not sorry to have told me of it.” 

Royd wondered how he had come to doubt her 
friendship. This was the Barbara he had known— 
unspoiled and frank, and ready to fear anything where 
those she cared for were in case. 

“ Barbara,” he said, with a half-rueful laugh, “ have 
I worn so grim a look of late that you thought that? 
Why, I am growing richer every day, and if the mar¬ 
kets strengthen as they promise I shall do better still 
before the year is out.” 

“ Oh, I am glad! I feared— Then what has been 
amiss ? ” she broke off, still regarding him with the 
same open, friendly glance. 

He would have told her then, had he been any wiser 
than herself; as it was, he turned her question. 

“ I’ve seen too little of the Grey House on the Hill. 
See, Barbara, we’ll dream old times are back, and you 
shall sing to me.” 

She rose at once and moved to the spinet; and when 
Royd would have come to turn the leaves, she would 
not let him. 

“ No, you shall put your hands behind your head— 
see how I remember all your lazy ways!—and I’ll sing 
you the ballads that I know by heart.” 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 


3 1 


First, she gave him “ Barbara Allen,” and then passed 
from one to another of the songs that were as familiar 
to both, and as full of old association as the sounds of 
the moors above them and the voice of the streams in 
the hollows. Royd sat and watched her, and felt the 
years fall off from him. The fragrant parlour, that he 
had known ever since he knew anything at all—the 
look, and feel, and scent of it were all as they had been 
long since. The oaken sideboard, with its load of china, 
its slender wineglasses and silver drinking-cups; the 
deep window-seat, half filled with hyacinths and cro¬ 
cuses; the curtains of white chintz, sprigged with pink 
flowers; the spinet just under the three-cornered cup¬ 
board; the mingled perfume of last year’s rose-leaves, 
of living flowers, of old, well-polished oak. These— 
and Barbara, slim against the panelling behind her, with 
the candle-shadows lying soft across her face and the 
snowdrops nodding to her from the bowl that stood 
upon the spinet-top. 

She stopped awhile, and looked across at him, and 
smiled as she drifted into the air of the ballad they 
knew best of all. 

“ I know a lady fair to see,” she began, and when 
she halted at the end of the first verse, Royd nodded to 
her in token that he would have no less than all the 
song. 

The old words, to a setting that she and Royd had 
given them long ago, seemed to linger in the shadowed 
corners of the room; and the quiet pathos of the song 
was echoed by the wind that rustled through the dead 
stalks of the garden flowers without. 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


3 2 

It was done. Little Barbara sat mute, Her fingers oil 
the keys, and would not look at her friend of other days. 
And, like a flash, Royd saw another picture—saw his 
mill, with the wool-sacks, and the hum of spinning- 
frames, and the hard-faced folk who came to talk of 
pounds and pence. It was there, not here, that his 
work lay; and Barbara’s voice had played strange tricks 
with him to-night. 

He went to the spinet, and leaned his arm on it, and 
stood looking down at her; but still she would not turn 
to him, though never until now had she found cause to 
shun his glance. The silence grew at last so heavy that 
Barbara took down the snuffers from their tray and 
trimmed the candles without their needing it; she was 
growing womanly, it seemed, all in the space of one 
short evening. 

“ I was right, and you were wrong, child,” he said, 
watching the slim fingers do their work; “ it was 
common-sense, I think, that kept me away from 
Wynyates.” 

“ I—I do not understand you, Stephen— See, the 
candles on the mantelshelf need snuffing too; will you 
not do them for me? ” 

He took the silver bauble from her, and again a thrill 
of strange disquiet stirred her at the chance contact of 
their hands. But he let the candle-wicks bend over as 
they listed, black and smoky, and held to what he had 
to say. 

“ I was born to this, little Barbara,” he said, looking 
round the room; “ a little more of it, and I should begin 
to feel it was my right, and then I should lose my grip 



HE WENT TO THE SPINET AND STOOD LOOKING DOWN AT HER 










THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 


33 


on facts. It’s only some other man’s shell, after all, 
that I have crept into, and I fear to leave it.” 

She did not answer; only played halting bars of “ I 
know a lady fair to see,” and felt more sorry than she 
understood that it was not she who was causing his 
disquiet, but just the hundred little symbols of luxury 
and ease of which she made but one poor item. And 
then before she had realised her pain, he was talking of 
old days again, and the warmth came back to her, and 
she forgot to keep her eyes away from his. 

“ You thought I had forgotten, then, child ? You 
thought I was too careless to come back and play with 
my old comrade? ” he finished. 

“ Your comrade has lacked playmates lately,” faltered 
Barbara. “ This Grey House on the Hill is sadly lonely, 
Stephen, when one stays to think of it.” 

His face grew quiet and grave again upon the sudden. 

“ I could not have made it brighter for you—not as 
things were,” he said. “ See, Barbara, some day— 
when I have done what I have set myself to do—I shall 
throw it all behind me, and come to the old life with 
clean hands, and—” 

She turned on him, her face as wilful as his own, her 
eyes alight with something he had never yet seen there. 

“ How* dare you talk of coming with clean hands! ” 
she cried. “You are like them all; and I, who have 
followed you through failure and success—who have 
been proud and glad to see you working, Stephen—I 
find that you are ashamed, as father is ashamed, and 
Mr. Bancroft, and all of them—ashamed of the road 
that is carrying you to the hilltops.” 


34 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Royd watched her, half admiring, half smiling at her 
zeal. He had been picturing the sharp contrast between 
his own way of life and Barbara’s; he thought she was 
ennobling the mere details of his trade with a girl’s 
untutored fancy, and all the while he did not guess that 
she was seeing deeper than himself—seeing the worthy 
core under the forbidding rind. 

“ I am fit to sing frail ballads to you,” she went on, 
with heightened colour, “ to work at the embroidery- 
frame that stands beside the window yonder, to shrink 
from everything that is not delicate and soft and per¬ 
fumed. And this because I have grown from a child 
into a woman! Stephen, have we never known the 
moors together, you and I? Have you taught me 
nothing of wind and rain and thunder, and the bogs that 
drown a wayfarer and the great hills that lift him into 
life?” 

“ We have learned all that together, Babs,” he said. 

“ Once we had walked to Wyecollar—do you re¬ 
member?—and we came home across the moor. And 
the mist came rolling over Dead Lad’s Rigg, and every¬ 
thing was blotted out, and we thought the night would 
come before we found our way again. Did I cry, 
Stephen? Did I sit on the heather with my hands 
clasped in my lap, and talk of dying an early death 
because I was over good for this hard world? ” 

Royd smiled, but not in pity of her inexperience now. 
“ You did not cry, Babs; and when the mist lifted and 
we found ourselves four miles from home you would 
not let me carry you.” 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 


35 

“ No, for I should have been a hindrance, not a 
help.” 

“You were only ten, Barbara—and that was young 
for such deep reasoning.” 

There was a silence; and then, to his dismay, she 
bent her head above the yellow spinet-keys and broke 
into a storm of sobs. He would have put his arm about 
her as in childhood’s days, but she shrank from him; 
and by and by she checked the sobs. 

“ I am not so very brave, am I, Stephen, after all ? ” 
she said, smiling up at him. “ I—I think I shall go 
back to the embroidery and making of black currant 
wine; and then you’ll not be troubled because I want 
you to be proud of—of such a shameful thing as trade.” 

Royd could not follow her. As well seek meaning 
from April on the moors, when rain and playful sun¬ 
shine, soft winds and bitter chased one another up the 
wooden clefts. As his way was when ill-at-ease with 
her, he fell back on his old mastery. 

“ What is it, child? You’re fey to-night, I think,” 
he said, holding her two hands close. “ That Hunts¬ 
man ancestor of yours at Wyecollar was abroad last 
night, they say; has he passed by this way and whis¬ 
pered in your ear ? ” 

She left the spinet and stood facing him; there was 
no mistaking the apprehension in her face. “ Was he 
riding, Stephen? Who saw him?” she asked. 

“ Lavrock at the Herders vowed he heard him; Lav- 
rock dreams too much for this life, as you know. Tut, 
Barbara, I would not have spoken of it—” 


36 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ One cannot kill the old faiths/’ she said simply; 
“ if they are to die, Stephen, it will take more genera¬ 
tions than you or I will see.” 

“ Yes; but what had this mouldy Squire of Wyecollar* 
to do with you ? ” he cried. “ His branch of the Cun- 
liffes died out many a year ago, and all their ill-luck 
with them.” 

“ It is no use, Stephen, we have been called the luck¬ 
less Cunliffes too, and they say that all we shall inherit 
by and by will be the family ruin.” 

Royd laughed, his old undaunted laugh that had 
been clearest always in the thick of his own troubles. 
“ Were I the last to carry the name ‘ Luckless ’ I would 
fight till I killed old superstition and made the world 
say ‘ lucky Cunliffe.’ The world is a parrot, Babs, and 
so is superstition.” 

She was weak now, and he was strong; she liked it 
better so. “ You’re still the same, Stephen,” she said 
softly. “ You never add ‘ God willing ’ when you say 
‘ I will do this.’ We Cunliffes always do—we fear 
what waits for us at the bending of the road.” 

He put his hands upon her shoulders and shook her 
playfully. “ Now look at me, little playmate,” he said. 
“ Do you tell me—you, who did not cry when the mists 
rolled over Dead Lad’s Rigg—that when the Huntsman 
has wandered through a farmer’s nightmare you begin 
at once to look in every corner for disaster? ” 

“ I do not look for it, it comes,” she answered quietly, 
—“ not big disaster* maybe,, but trouble of some sort. 
Stephen, have you noticed any change in father lately ? ” 
she broke off. 


THE GREY HOUSE ON THE HILL 


37 


He had noticed a growing coldness toward himself, 
but this he could not tell her; nor did she need be told 
how great the Squire’s abhorrence was of anything that 
had to do with trade. 

“ He is ageing fast, I think,” she went on. “ Did you 
see how pale he went when you told him Tim o’ Tab’s 
was hurt? I have puzzled and puzzled to guess what 
the bond between them is, but cannot find an answer. 
Once before, when Tim was laid up for a month or two, 
he seemed to lose all heart; and never once went near 
the old loft above the mistal. Stephen, what does 
father do up there? He tells me everything but that; 
and I wake in the night and know that he is working, 
working among those dreary chemicals of his, and my 
heart aches for him.” 

“ They say he is seeking the Philosopher’s Stone; he 
is not the first who has followed a Jack-o’-lanthorn over 
barren land,” Royd muttered, not knowing how to meet 
her question. 

“ It is killing him, Stephen. I can see the weariness 
grow greater week by week. Why will he not be con¬ 
tent with the riches that we have? ” 

Royd understood—or thought he did—why she had 
given way so utterly a moment since. “ Has this been 
weighing on you lately ? ” he asked. “ I have never 
seen you cry, little Barbara, as you did just now—never 
with such a heart-break in it.” 

Her eyes dropped, and she hid her face, as if to cool 
its fire, among the snowdrops on the spinet-top. Even 
yet she did not know the reason of her tears; but she 
so far understood them as to stoop to unfamiliar deceit. 


38 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Yes, it has—it has troubled me,” she whispered. 
“ Am I wrong to talk of it to you ? ” 

“ Why, bless me, that is Marshcotes clock we hear,” 
came the Parson’s jolly voice from the passage. “ The 
wind must have shifted to the east, Squire, and that 
bodes good neither to man nor cattle. Well, little 
Barbara,”—opening the door a trifle clumsily,—“ We 
heard your singing, and thought the throstles had 
mistaken what o’clock it was. Stephen, will you ride 
home by the way of Marshcotes? I have kept the 
Squire out of his bed until he’s all but past it.” 

The Parson looked narrowly at Barbara as he stooped 
above her hand to bid farewell. He was quicker than 
his neighbours to read the speech that is never spoken, 
and what he learned from that quick glance kept him 
silent for the first mile of the journey home. 


CHAPTER III 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 

I T was Royd who first broke the silence, as he and 
Parson Horrocks climbed out of Scartop Hollow, 
and up the road that was taking them from the 
Grey House on the Hill to Marshcotes. 

“ I have met two old masters to-day, Parson,” he 
said, waking from a dream of olden days. “ Lavrock 
at the Herders, who taught me how to snare a grouse, 
and you—who taught me all else, I think,” he added, 
in an altered voice. For only he knew how this grey 
old parson—who hid his good works carefully—had 
watched over, taught and fathered him. 

Those few impulsive words meant much to Parson 
Horrocks; so much that his eyes grew dim a little— 
though that was owing, he told himself, to the shrewd¬ 
ness of the wind. 

“ Pish, boy! You should have come to me to learn 
grouse-snaring too,” he cried, with would-be lightness. 
“ What, not know the way of it? And how to net a 
hare? And how to make the farmers wonder why 
parsley grows so thick upon their fields? Let no man 
take a cure of souls in Marshcotes parish who does not 
know these things—for he’ll preach to empty pews. 
And how is business, Stephen ? ” 

39 


40 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Good, with a likelihood of better, sir.” He drew 
rein and pointed to a speck of light far up the hill-slope 
opposite. “ That was a well-timed question, Parson. 
See the old homestead there,” he said,—“ the home that 
I have slaved and slaved to win back for the Royds. 
It grows fairer to me every year, I think.” 

The other sat his horse in silence, and watched the 
trembling of Royd’s hands upon the reins, and the 
eagerness with which he leaned forward in the saddle— 
the fifty signs of inward fire that few were able to 
surprise in Stephen Royd; and the Parson nodded with 
grave appreciation, for he reckoned such signs healthy 
in young or old. And in truth the Heights looked like 
a house that no man could leave lightly, once having 
known it for his own. Long, low, and black, it showed 
to-night, with the wide valley, shadow-filled, creeping 
up and up as far as the dark patch of garden; yet it 
was less than altogether stern, for the moon lay on the 
tree-tops like a silvern reaping-hook, and the stars were 
kindly guardians. 

“ I was sixteen when I went out of yonder gates—a 
beggar hampered by his pride,” Royd muttered. “ That 
is twenty years since, Parson, and I could buy it now. 
Ay—but will Bancroft sell ? ” 

“ Bide your time, lad; I should not wonder.” 

“ I was patient, while the price of it was in the mak¬ 
ing; but now I’m restless. Bancroft need never sell,— 
nor will he, knowing that to keep me out is the worst 
turn he can do me.” 

The Parson thrust his heels against his mare’s plump 
sides. 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 41 

“ Stephen, the night is shrewd for those who’ve got 
no House of Dreams to keep them warm. Bancroft is 
going the way to lose land and money and all else,— 
bide quiet, I tell thee, lad, and the Heights will see a 
Royd again as master. ,, 

Another mile they rode in silence; then Parson 
Horrocks turned abruptly to the younger man. 

“ What were you saying awhile since to that child at 
Wynyates, Stephen ? ” he asked. 

Royd’s mind was clear of blame, however, and he only 
echoed the other’s question in a tone that left no doubt 
of his honesty. 

“ Well, I never saw that look on her face before, and 
I had hoped—well—never mind what I had hoped, lad,” 
the Parson finished with a sigh. “ Why does the Squire 
go searching for this Magic Stone of his ? ” he went on 
presently, unconsciously repeating a question which the 
Squire’s daughter had asked herself, not long since. 
“ Does he not know that he showed himself a real 
alchemist at Barbara’s birth ? She is the sort of magic 
we want more of lad—we should see a world then all 
gold from sod to sky.” 

But Royd was silent, and the Parson, though he 
scanned his face, could find no key in it to what his 
thoughts of Barbara were. Nor could he guess that the 
wind, blowing cold and shrill from off the uplands, 
brought only to the younger man the soft notes of a 
ballad, sung to the music of a time-worn spinet. The 
solitary light upon the hill that marked the Heights 
was well behind them now, and down in the hollow of 
the valley a score of lighted windows mocked at the 


42 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


moonlit loneliness which awhile since had seemed to 
wrap the slumbering land. The sight was one to bring 
Royd back from dreams of Barbara, for it told him that 
though his own mill was resting till the morrow, the 
spinning-frames of other masters were hurrying the 
night through in the feverish race for wealth. 

“ Look at Goit Mill yonder, Stephen,” said the Par¬ 
son, drawing rein as Royd had done not long ago. 
“ ’Tis godless work goes on down yonder, if all be true 
they whisper in the parish.” 

“ It is all true, for I have seen it,” answered the other 
slowly; “ I have even fought with conscience now and 
then—though you would not guess it, Parson—to think 
that I make my money by aid of such as the master of 
Goit Mill.” 

“ That is not common-sense, lad,” put in the Parson 
kindly; “ one gpod master leavens the lump of ten bad 
ones, and God be thanked for him, say I.” 

Royd’s brow was drawn, and there was disquiet in his 
laugh, as if the talk had carried to some tender point. 
“ I do not care to be called a good master—not even by 
you, Parson. I have my way to make, and I make it; 
philanthropy is a different trade.” 

The Parson only shook his head, for every man about 
the moorside thought Royd a better master than he 
believed himself to be. They stood there and watched 
the flickering, dull-red light of the oil-lamps in the 
windows down below, and the moving patches of 
shadow which told that little children were moving to 
and fro among the spinning-frames. 

“ The old order dies hard, lad Stephen, but its end is 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 43 


nearing/' said Parson Horrocks, as they made forward 
on their road again. “ Yonder mill has stood there for 
a good ten years, and yet ’tis strange even now to me 
to see it there. Think of the contrast and the change. 
Ten years ago it was as silent in the valley here as up 
by grey old Wynyates; Wynyates is silent still—but 
here the lamps flare garishly, and the spindles never 
rest, and men make night into day for the bairns that 
have scarce grown to lisp their prayers/’ 

“ Prayers ? ” echoed Royd. “ There are prayers 
needed down at Goit Mill, Parson—but I fancy you’ll 
find all the bairns too tired to think of any.” 

“ It is true, then, that they keep the children at their 
work till they’ve no strength left to take them home? 
True that the lash—” 

“ It is all true,” Royd broke in brusquely,—“ that and 
more; fancy could not paint Goit Mill in colours black 
enough.” 

“ I have heard much of it, and have tried to think it 
false,” said the Parson with a sigh. “ Think of it, 
Stephen! We’re so far away here from the trade 
centres, so far from all the hurry and feverishness of the 
towns. Look at the hills yonder; every line of them 
should preach peace and right-dealing to the man who 
builds his mill beneath their shadow.” 

Royd was silent for a moment; this old parson, with 
his faith and that poetry that had only grown the 
sweeter with old age, was a strange contrast, and a 
pathetic, to the man of the younger generation. 

“ The master of Goit Mill,” he said at last, “ does 
not look often at the hills, I fancy—-except to see if rain 


44 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


is coming when his dams are dry. Peace and right¬ 
dealing ? He would tell you there’s no money in them. 
Why, it is the loneliest of these upland mills that are 
the worst; they are out of reach, and things can be 
done there that would not be tolerated in the towns. 
Hold up, lass! Hold up! ” he broke off, as his horse 
swerved suddenly and came to a dead halt. The moon 
was on the underside of Dead Lad’s Rigg by now, and 
they had reached the darkest corner of the road. 

“ What is it, Stephen ? are you thrown ? ” came the 
Parson’s voice from out the darkness. 

“ No, but near it. . This mare of mine must have seen 
something—but it is more than I can do.” 

The mare was trembling, and Royd, as he passed his 
hand along her neck, could feel the terror beaded there 
in drops of sweat. Not knowing what might be upon 
the road, he and the Parson went forward at a careful 
foot-pace until the highway drove clear of the over¬ 
hanging bank of trees, and gave them once again the 
dim starlight to which their eyes had grown accustomed. 
They saw now what had startled the mare, and Royd 
laughed softly at her for a fool; but Parson Horrocks 
kept his eyes upon the figure moving just ahead of 
them, and held his peace. 

The figure of a child it was, with shoulders bent and 
head thrown forward; and though she made forward up 
the hill without a pause, her feet went stumbling from 
the right side to the left of the rough highway, and 
time and time she tottered drunkenly. The Parson 
called to her, but she did not stop nor answer, and when 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 45 

he overtook her he saw that the lids lay heavy on her 
eyes. 

“ God’s pity, Stephen, what is this ? ” he cried, as 
Royd came up with him. “ The little lass is sound 
asleep, and but for your mare’s fright we might well 
have over-ridden her. What is it, lad? Is she sleep¬ 
walking, think ye? ” 

“ What is it ? ” repeated the other, who had seen such 
sights before; “it is over-much work and over-little 
food, Parson; for did we not see Goit Mill alight as we 
went by? ” 

“ Is it time to waken, father ? ” she murmured. 

“ Will it be safe to wake her, eh? They say—” 

“ Ay, but her eyes are closed, not opened wide. She 
sleeps for weariness, sir, and she walks because she 
must needs get home to-night.” 

Parson Horrocks stooped and touched her on the 
shoulders, and a shiver seized her as if he had applied 
the lash. 

Again the Parson touched her, and this time her eyes 
opened. 

“ Why, little lass, what art doing on the road at this 
hour of a dark night ? ” he cried. 

The child stumbled, either from weariness or sleep, 
and her voice came drowsily, “ Been to th’ miln.” 

“ And where do you live, bairn, eh ? ” 

“ I live wi’ my mother, close by Marshcotes Kirk, 
sir.” She was wide enough awake by now to recognise 
the Parson, but she looked for no sort of kindness from 
him,—she only waited until he should have done with 


4 6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


her, and expected each moment, from very force of 
habit, that a cut of his riding-whip would end the talk. 

“ From Goit Mill to Marshcotes—and she not seven 
yet, Royd,” muttered the Parson. 

“ They begin at five years old to work—never 
younger than that,” Royd put in drily. His feelings 
were stirred as deeply as the Parson’s—more deeply 
perhaps, for he had been through Goit Mill by night 
and he remembered—but he would not show it. 

“ You must have a care, bairn,” went on the Parson. 
“ Do you know that we all but rode over you as we 
came up the hill ? ” 

“ I war asleep, sir,” she answered simply. “ Happen 
—happen ye’ll beat me for’t and hev done; I’m late 
home to mother as ’tis.” 

It was terrible to Parson Horrocks, this; if she had 
shrunk from the expected blow, it would have been 
better—but she waited with the consummate fearless¬ 
ness of one who, at seven years of age, had gauged the 
last extremity of pain. 

“ Beat you for it ? Why, what put that thought into 
your head? ” he cried. 

“ He alius beats me when I fall asleep,”—pointing 
backward to the factory, which still looked at them 
with its red eyes. “ I’m daft-like, he says; an’ when I 
cannot spin no more, he beats me too.” 

The Parson put a strong arm about her and swung 
her to his saddle, and by the stars and the after-light of 
the moon he recognised her as a neighbour’s child. 

“ Why, it’s Lavrock’s little lass, and a near neighbour 
of my own,” he muttered. “ She used to play about the 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 47 

graves, Stephen, and grew to be a rare friend of mine; 
but Eve missed her lately, and her folk seemed shy of 
answering my questions.” 

“ Folk are who are driven to send their children to 
Goit Mill,” Royd answered. “ Yet I have heard about 
the child here only this morning, as it chanced, from her 
uncle at the Herders. He was right, I fancy, when he 
said that she was over-delicate to work at all.” 

The other answered nothing for awhile; he was 
watching the child’s face, and he thought he saw on it 
the trace of recent tears. 

“ You have been crying, lass,” he said gently. “ Has 
the overlooker been beating you again? ” 

“ I warn’t crying for that,” she put in quickly, with 
fresh apprehension; “it war becos th’ boggarts came 
an’ peeped at me as I came up Drowned Man’s Loin 
—an’ I couldn’t run, I war that weariful. It warn’t for 
being beaten ’at I cried,” she repeated earnestly; 
“ mother says I’se lose my job if I cry ivery time I’m 
hurt.” 

The Parson saw it all as in a picture—the long day’s 
work—the growing sleepiness, which, to the childish 
brain, seemed altogether its own fault—the dark walk 
home, and the fear of lurking boggarts—and then the 
weariness that was too great even for a child’s terrors, 
the weariness that by nature’s mercy wrapped the mind 
about, while only battered instinct still kept awake 
sufficiently to take the tired limbs home. 

“Why did you come home alone? Were there no 
other children leaving work ? ” he asked. 

“ Ay, sir—but I war kept a half-hour after they had 


48 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


goan; for I like as I fall asleep fro’ nooin to neet, an’ 
th’ overseer telled me I mun mak up for gooid time 
lost.” 

This, too, she told him in a dull, matter-of-fact way, 
as though there were nothing out of the usual in it— 
as though, indeed, she had no just cause of complaint 
against the overseer or any other man. He was a man 
of quick passions, the Parson, and the anger and the 
pity in him choked his voice when he tried to whisper 
consolation to the child. What were the parents doing? 
It was they who ought to feel resentment, since the 
child could not; and if bread were short, they had 
better beg it by the wayside or steal it from the rich 
than let such helpless mites as this become the wage- 
earners. Parson Horrocks had been gay enough an 
hour agone at Wynyates, and none would have looked 
for harshness under his twinkling eyes of grey; but now, 
with an impulse frankly savage, he fingered his heavy 
riding-whip, and longed to have the master of Goit Mill 
face to face with him. 

The child, stupidly surprised that no blow of whip or 
hand had followed the Parson’s questions, let sleep steal 
over her again and nestled close against the rider’s arm, 
until the horse stumbled over a deep rut and half 
aroused her. 

“ Is’t time to waken, father? Father, ’tis cowd and 
dark—let me lig a wee while longer,” she murmured, 
thinking again that it was morning. 

And anger left the Parson; for there seemed no place 
for anything but sorrow—sorrow, and a deeper sense of 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 49 

pathos than he had realised in all his threescore years 
of life. 

“ They make bread of the children’s tears, Stephen,” 
he cried brokenly; “ and we who have too much—shall 
we not have to give a reckoning for it in the time to 
come? ” 

But Royd made no answer; and if his thoughts were 
deep, he gave no inkling of it. His face was hard and 
cold as he rode on the Parson’s bridle-hand, and when 
they reached the parting of the ways he bade him the 
curtest of good-nights. For he, too, was a factory 
master, and there were times when his own conscience— 
sneering at itself the while—took up the load of other 
masters’ sins and counted them its own. 

The Parson, soon as Royd had left him, rode straight 
up the lane this side the Parsonage, and stopped at the 
door of the topmost cottage. A woman stood on the 
threshold, shading a rushlight with one hand against 
the wind, and looking down the lane. 

“ Fve brought your child home; I found her spent 
with weariness upon the road,” was all he said, until 
he had carried the little one indoors and laid her on the 
lang-settle. 

“ An’ thankee, Parson; I war getting flaired ’at 
summat hed come to her, for th’ childer next door war 
home a half-hour sin’. What ails thee, lass?” she 
broke off, bending with rough solicitude above the 
settle. 

The Parson stood looking at her for a while; he saw 
the dilated pupils of the eyes, hidden every other second 


50 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


by the heavy lids; he saw the purple rings beneath the 
eyes, and the dead grey of the face that should have 
been a comely one, and a long red weal, as of a lash, all 
down the cheek; he remembered too the dull weight of 
her body as he lifted her from off the saddle. And on 
the sudden he turned round upon the mother, his eyes 
ablaze with a light that few men, and no other woman, 
in the parish had seen in them. 

“ Woman,” he cried, “ how in God’s name dare you 
send such as this to kill herself for bread? ” 

It was the mother’s turn to fire now. She lost her 
down-trodden, half-appealing look, and faced him 
across the child’s prostrate body. 

“ How dare I, Parson ? ” she cried. “ There’s no 
dare or dare not in’t. How dare I let her starve, an’ let 
my husband starve, an’ starve myseln? Jonas ligs up 
i’ th’ chamber wi’ black fever, an’ I’ve worn my shooin 
through wi’ seeking wark, an’ th’ meal i’ th’ tub gets 
shallower ivery day.” 

“ It is a crime to send her to Goit Mill. Are there no 
other masters in the parish? Stephen Royd, for one, 
would see that no child came to harm.” 

“ Ay, but he willun’t tak childer under ten; no gooid 
master will—an’ so th’ little uns mun all go to t’others.” 
She gripped the settle-back with her hands, and stilled 
his passion by her own. “ D’ye think we do’t for 
choice?” she cried. “D’ye think it’s nawther sin nor 
shame to me, as suckled th’ little lass here, to gi’e her 
up to sich as Booth o’ Goit Miln? God knows there’ll 
be one more i’ hell if prayers can send him there. But 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 51 

it's no use, no use at all! ” she broke off, losing heart 
and courage as suddenly as she had found them. 

There was silence in the little, ill-kept room. Such 
things seemed flat denial of all faith in God, and the 
Parson groped with a blind man’s helplessness through 
the dark ways of fact. The mother, proud once, and 
still too proud to beg, was shorn of all old self-reliance; 
she looked a slattern, and her sobs had in them all the 
slattern’s helplessness. She showed all the outward 
signs, indeed, of what was meant by “ hard times,” the 
signs which Stephen Royd had seen not long ago in 
Lavrock of the Herders. 

“ He’s hitten her i’ a new place to-day,” she mur¬ 
mured vaguely, leaning over to stroke the red weal on 
the child’s face. 

The child stirred. “ I fell asleep while I war carrying 
bobbins,” she said, “ an’ he lashed me. ‘ I’ll waken 
thee,’ he said, ‘ I’ll waken thee! ’ ” 

A great sob broke from Parson Horrocks. “ It 
cannot be! ” he cried. “ Nay, for every father in the 
moorside would rise and pull the stones of Goit Mill 
one from another! ” 

“ An’ what o’ th’ brass ? ” said the woman simply. 
“ He has us which way we turn, has Ephraim Booth. 
We said our childer shouldn’t wark for him; we framed 
a union amang ourselns—that war i’ th’ better days— 
an’ there war nawther chick nor child i’ Marshcotes 
went to th’ miln. An’ what did he say to that, Parson ? 
We thowt it’d learn him to mend his ways, or beggar 
him—an’ i’stead he goes to th’ Heathley Workhouse, 


52 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


an’ gets a score o’ pauper childer, an’ calls ’em ’pren¬ 
tices. He keeps ’em there like pigs; an’ now we’re 
forced once an’ again to send our childer to him, he 
pays ’em less nor iver.” 

Parson Horrocks felt the need for action; there was 
something he could do, and do at once, and only by 
that road did thought grow bearable. 

“ What has she had to eat to-day? ” he asked. 

“ A pint o’ porridge afore her breakfast; I hedn’t no 
more meal to spare.” 

“ Then set the kettle on, and I’ll be back as soon as 
may be.” 

Another man would have left money, but the Parson 
never courted such easier ways of charity. Before long 
he was back again, with new milk, and eggs, and a 
bottle of brandy; he broke one of the eggs into a cup, 
and added milk and brandy, all with the deftness of one 
who had long since learned to minister to body-sickness 
as well as soul-sickness. Yet even as he lifted the 
child’s head and held the mug for her to drink from, 
that quiet and terrible murmur rose once again to her 
lips. 

“ Is’t time to waken, father? Father, is’t time to 
waken? ” 

And when the Parson was at home again, the words 
clung to him obstinately. That phrase, “ Is’t time to 
waken ? ” had grown to be the first thought of the child’s 
life, the only thought; it bounded all her dim horizon— 
that and the overlooker’s lash. There was no rest, save 
a few hours’ troubled sleep; no play, no momentary 
gleam of sunlight on the darker slopes of life. 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 53 


The Parson, in all times of trouble or perplexity, 
repaired to the graveyard that shut the Parsonage in— 
the graveyard that was garden and God’s Acre both to 
him. The sight of the quiet graves, the nearness of 
those whose fret was long since over, had always woven 
a deep spell of peace about him; and the lettered head¬ 
stones were each a sermon, a romance, or a psalm of 
rest, according to his mood. But he found no peace 
to-night, though he walked up and down the paths for 
a long hour. He had heard strange things of Goit 
Mill, but to-night he had seen them in their grim 
reality; and, as he looked up at the old kirk-tower, the 
symbol of a life-long faith, a low and bitter cry escaped 
him. And in his heart he asked what God was doing; 
and for awhile he could find no answer, in this bitterest 
hour, save that God slept and heeded not. 

Little Barbara, too, had suffered an awakening to¬ 
night. Soon as Royd and the Parson had bidden fare¬ 
well to her in the parlour of the Grey House on the 
Hill, she went to the spinet, and tried to sing the ballad 
that had always been their favourite—hers and 
Stephen’s; but she had no heart for it, and by and by 
she rose, and leaned her arms upon the spinet, and 
felt she knew not what—a pang of utter loneliness, 
and, following it, a deep, new joy in living. The Squire 
was busying himself, as his custom was, with looking 
to the fastenings of the doors. The creak of his foot¬ 
steps down the passages, the rustle of the wind, were 
all that broke the stillness; but Barbara, as she leaned 
her forehead on her hands and looked from one familiar 
corner to another of the room—the embroidery-frame, 


54 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


the great chair with its padded arms, the bowl of rose- 
leaves—felt a strange novelty about it all. It was as if 
she had come back from a far journey, and was glad of 
the new freshness lying over all the old home land¬ 
marks; the world, too, had grown in stature surely, and 
showed her fancy twenty traits of worthiness where she 
had never thought to look for them. For awhile she 
stood there wondering, not knowing that the world was 
the same as it had always been, hid for the moment 
by gossamer that she herself had woven; it was the 
breathless moment of suspense and expectation, and 
innocent withdrawal, which comes not twice to any 
woman. And then her face slipped down between her 
hands, and a crimson flush ran over face and hands; 
she recalled how she had sat in the old childish way 
and sought Royd’s confidence and given her own in 
fair exchange; and the shame of it was on her still 
when the Squire, a look of sad perplexity about his eyes, 
came softly in at the half-open door. 

“ You are tired, Babette,” he said, putting an arm 
about her and losing half his own trouble in the need 
to solace hers. “ Run up to bed, child, and save the 
hour of beauty-sleep that’s left.” 

He did not follow her at once, but moved about the 
room with faltering steps. “ There’ll be no need for 
me to work to-night—no need to-night,” he murmured. 
“ Poor little Barbara! How she tries to win the secret 
from me—how she tries! and God knows how willingly 
I’d share it with her—if it were possible.” 

It was Barbara, not he, who was to waste the night- 
hours in watching. Her casement was open to the 


WAYFARERS ON THE ROAD OF TRADE 55 


wind, and she sat looking out upon the lone, grey fields, 
not heeding that the night was cold. She understood 
it now, that passionate storm of sobs which Royd had 
interpreted amiss; and, while her heart was glad, her 
pride was strangely hurt. Glamour was ousted by new- 
awakened fears, and fear again gave place to hopeful¬ 
ness. But one thing was sure—Stephen and she could 
never again take up the comradeship which that night’s 
work had killed. 

Little Barbara was at last a woman grown. 


CHAPTER IV 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 

S PRING was whispering to the moor again; in the 
hollows buds were breaking into leafy spray, 
though on the crest of every dingle white winter 
stayed for one last glance upon the kingdom she had 
ruled so long. The wind was free and sharp, and on 
the streams the sunlight danced with silver feet. Even 
the rough house, that looked from the moor-edge over 
the bare upper-half of Hazel Dene, seemed to be think¬ 
ing of its youth this morning, and smoothed its 
wrinkles to the sunlight. Half cottage, half farmstead, 
it raised a square, uncompromising shoulder against 
the spur of heath that carried the house of Withens on 
its topmost edge; and the land about it was neither peat 
nor pasture, but a stubborn mixture of the two. 

A strange figure came out of the doorway, and 
crossed the trampled yard—a lean body of a man, set 
on a pair of spindle legs, with half the head and all the 
shoulders hidden by a sack of wool. One hand held 
the sack in its place, the other carried a tin oil-can; and 
from underneath the sack a sharp face, full of drollery, 
looked out upon the sunlit slopes and winked its one 
useful eye. There was no mistaking the likeness be¬ 
tween the man and the unwashed cur that followed at 
his heels. The man’s right eye was covered by a patch, 
56 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 


57 


the terrier’s had a black patch of hair in faithful imita¬ 
tion; and in every movement of dog and master there 
was the same devil-may-care, good-humoured readiness 
for frolic. 

Tim o’ Tab’s had lived at Benty Farm here all his 
life, and many another Earnshaw before him; and he 
was as proud of the ramshackle place as ever Squire 
Cunliffe was of Wynyates, or Stephen Royd of the 
home he was slaving to win back. The difference was 
that his betters were proud of house and name alike, 
while Tim had never really known the dignity of a 
surname; there were too many Earnshaws scattered 
here and there about the moors, and the neighbours had 
always found it simpler to name him Tim o’ Tab’s, 
after old Tabitha Earnshaw, the widowed mother who 
had worked herself into a restless grave by toiling for 
Tim’s welfare. 

“ Squire hes lacked me sorely,” mused Tim, as he 
moved with long uneasy strides beneath his burden. 
“ Ay, he war thinner i’ th’ face nor I liked to see when 
I spake wi’ him yestreen. An’ all because there’s a 
chap at Lanshaw Brigg that willun’t let folk tak his 
game i’ peace. Well, well, there’s nowt so queer as 
folk, an’ th’ keepers cost a sight more nor th’ game 
they save, if only th’ gentle-folk ’ud look at it sensible 
like.” 

Flick, the terrier, started a rabbit from the warren at 
the field-top, and Tim o’ Tab’s was never the man to let 
a chance of sport go by. Leaning against the wall, he 
unshouldered his pack of wool and watched the rabbit’s 
scut twinkle for a moment at the mouth of its burrow, 


58 MISTRESS BARBARA 

then disappear just as Flick’s teeth came together with 
an anxious snap. 

“ Tha’rt a food,” said Tim to his dog, with good- 
tempered unconcern. “ I alius did say I’d hev made a 
better dog nor thee, if I’d nobbut hed the legs. Nay, 
tha’ll addle nowt by barking, lass. Barking niver hurt 
fur nor feather, an’ niver will, as Dick the weaver said 
when he hit his nattering wife over th’ head wi’ th’ end 
of a peggy-stick.” 

The terrier looked up into his face, and then was 
silent; for she could bear kicks from another man better 
than mockery from Tim o’ Tab’s. Tim stretched him¬ 
self, and looked about him at the strife of spring and 
winter which rarely ends with April on the uplands. 
A lamb, new-born, was trying its ungainly legs, and its 
fleece was white as the drift of snow that still lingered 
on the east side of the wall behind it. But the snow 
was sure to go, and Tim o’ Tab’s found nothing much 
amiss with the world as he stooped to shoulder his 
wool-pack once again. 

He left the steep fields by and by, and crossed the 
stream, and kept along the brown peat-track that 
hugged the farther margin. There was a new warmth 
here, and larch and rowan waved their first frail leaves 
against the dappled sky; but Tim’s eyes were on the 
ground, or on the water, for the signs of hare and conie, 
the print of bird’s feet on the peat or the stir of a brown 
back among the water-weeds, were more to him than 
any casual beauties of sky and leafage. 

“ Begow, but we mun hev a bit o’ sport, wool or no 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 


59 


wool,” he said to his dog, as they neared the well- 
known pool beneath the firs. 

Doffing his rough-spun jacket, and rolling his shirt¬ 
sleeves well up above the elbow, he crept softly to the 
bank. The pool was shallow enough in the middle, but 
on this side it had worn a track deep under the bank 
and wound darkly in and out between the roots of alder- 
trees and hazel. Tim stretched himself at full length 
above the brink—the terrier watching with grave alert¬ 
ness—and gently let his right hand drop into the water. 
With a patience he could rarely compass when work 
was to be done, he moved the hand up through the 
shadowed water near the edge until it disappeared 
among the alderroots; the fingers meanwhile were 
working softly to and fro, light as driftweed on the 
current, until they touched the cold, smooth belly of a 
trout. The dog, watching Tim’s face, knew that the 
prey was found, and her tail first stiffened, then swung 
from side to side with ill-suppressed excitement. And 
still Tim’s fingers rubbed tenderly against the brown 
trout’s belly, until, with one quick jerk, he lifted him 
clean out of the stream and on to the soft bank. 

The terrier’s self-restraint was over now. She was 
through the stream before Tim had well got to his feet 
again, and was racing round the trout in a fury of 
delight. 

“ Ay, tha’rt a rare un to bark, as I telled thee,” cried 
Tim; “ but it’s me that’s catched th’ fish, lass—by th’ 
Heart, but I niver saw a finer trout, in or out o’ Hazel 
Beck, an’ that’s gospel.” 


6o 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


There was a stir of broken twigs behind him, and a 
light footfall on the last year’s leaves. Tim was jealous 
of intrusion at these times, but his first distrustful 
glance was changed to a smile of welcome as he 
saw the slim figure on the bank. It was little Barbara 
—Barbara, leaning against a rowan-trunk, and watch¬ 
ing the progress of Tim’s sport with an eagerness as 
great almost as the terrier’s. 

“ That was very cleverly done, Tim,” she laughed. 
“ Do you—do you think you could teach me how to do 
it one day? ” 

Tim o’ Tab’s touched the greasy, close-fitting cap 
which he always wore when carrying wool. “ There 
was niver a fair day yet, Mistress Barbara, but what 
was fairer by th’ half for the sight o’ ye,” he said, with 
a frank look of affection. 

The girl only laughed a little, and picked a sprig of 
elder leaves. They were secure enough in birth and 
breeding, the Cunliffes, to meet gentle or simple on 
equal terms; and Tim had always been a kind of 
honoured jester at Wynyates, privileged to say his say 
in the fashion that best pleased him. 

“ That is not giving a fair answer to my question, 
Tim,” she said. “ I doubt you fear my rivalry if once 
you teach me how to tickle fish. Ah, there’s Flick! 
Well, then, Flick—you needn’t lick my hand away.” 

“ It’s a hand that’s fed her weel of late, an’ thankee 
for’t,” said Tim, glancing at his restless comrade. 
“ What war agate wi’ her, Mistress Barbara, to come 
an’ plague ye all at Wynyates, as she did six weeks 
sin’?” 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 61 


Barbara glanced quickly at him, then fell to rolling 
her elder leaves into little balls. “ I think it was be¬ 
cause she had lost you, and knew that you were often 
to be found at Wynyates,” she answered slowly. 
“ Strange, was it not, that she stayed so close to father 
all that evening and all the next day after, till we 
missed her at sundown? Oh, Tim, we were so fearful 
she was lost; and when father came in, last night, after 
seeing you, and said that Flick was with you, I was so 
glad—because, you know, you’d never be the same Tim 
again if Flick were gone.” 

Instinctively Tim reached down a hand and patted 
the dog with a rough tenderness. “ Nay, I’m none so 
sure,” he said. “ She hes varry little sense for a dog, 
hesn’t Flick; she mud a’most be a human, she’s that 
scant o’ wit. First, to go fly-by-skying up an’ dahn the 
moorside, when she should hev known I war ligging 
snug at th’ Herders; then, to beg vittals an’ a lodging 
fro’ them as niver axed her; an’, last of all, to come 
worriting back to th’ Herders same as if nowt hed 
happened, like,—nay, nay, ye tak my word for’t she’ll 
walk on two legs by an’ by, will Flick, for it’s no use 
her reckoning to be a dog. Not but what I war pleased 
to see her, for I alius had a bit of a soft spot i’ my 
heart for a fooil.” 

Again Barbara laughed, for the set of Tim’s head 
and the merry look in his eye gave a droll flavour to 
anything he said. 

“ See how you keep me gossiping,” she cried, turn¬ 
ing to go down the path; “ and we dine at two, Tim, 
and I have to get to Marshcotes Parsonage and back.” 


62 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Tim glanced at the sun. “ Ye’ve time an’ to spare, 
Mistress Barbara. Ye’ll be taking th’ road past Hazel 
Miln I reckon? I war by way o’ taking some comb¬ 
ings there myseln,” he added, stuffing the trout into a 
bulgy pocket of his coat and shouldering his wool-pack. 

Barbara flushed at mention of Hazel Mill. Her 
easiest road to Marshcotes lay through the mill-yard, 
and in the old days she would have welcomed the chance 
of meeting the master of it as she passed; but some¬ 
thing had chanced to little Barbara since then, and 
Stephen Royd was less and greater than a comrade. 

“ I am tired of the road through Hazel Dene,” she 
said, with a sudden coolness that startled Tim o’ Tab’s. 
“ I shall take the path up the fields here, Tim, and 
cross by Cuckoo Farm.” 

Tim shifted the wool a little on his shoulders and 
looked up at her as well as he could for the overhang¬ 
ing thatch of sacking. 

“ Axing your pardon, Mistress Barbara,” he said, 
“ there’s summat wrang. Ye doan’t sound best pleased, 
an’ as there’s only me an’ you i’ th’ wood, I reckon it 
mun be me that’s angered ye.” 

“ You, Tim? ” she echoed, with the old clear laugh. 
“ Why, what could you have done to anger me ? It 
was not that at all—it was only— Good-bye, Tim, 
and don’t forget you are to teach me one day how to 
tickle trout.” 

She waved a hand at him, and started up the winding 
track which generation after generation of the hill-sheep 
had trodden across the gnarled fields. She was not think¬ 
ing now of Stephen Royd, and the flush in her cheeks, 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 63 

though it grew brighter with each step, owned no mas¬ 
ter save the sunshine and the merry western wind. So 
well she knew this grey, bare land, with its jagged line 
of walls, its narrow sheep-stiles; so well she knew the 
hand of spring upon it, and the clean wholesomeness of 
scant, late-greening turf and budding heath. The 
marshes to be circumvented, too, with the brackish 
odour that the sun sucked from them—the brambles 
catching at her frock—the breathless, slippery scram¬ 
bles up the steep angles of the hill—were they not part 
and parcel of old recollection and delight? 

She would never be sad again, thought Barbara. 
How dared she be, with larks to sing before her, and 
thrushes piping from the dappled sunshine of the wood 
below? The birds and she were wise—they knew the 
beauty of the world. But she had reached the ridge- 
top now, and stopped to gain her breath again; and the 
long back of Hazel Mill showed through the fretwork 
of spring leaves beneath; and Barbara’s face grew soft 
with sudden pathos. 

For a long while she stood, looking wistfully upon 
the scene and listening to the sleepy humming of the 
water-wheel. She had chosen to avoid the mill; yet 
every detail of its precincts, hidden by the trees, was 
twice as clearly pictured in her mind as the grey pasture- 
land which so lately had delighted her. She could see it 
all so plainly, with the exquisite second-sight of retro¬ 
spect: the trim garden round about the mill walls; the 
dark mysterious cavern in which the green and slippery 
boxes of the wheel revolved; the treble row of ponds, 
one under the other, with the wind-wrinkled water in 


6 4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


the middle, and the thorn-trees dipping wide across the 
outer rim; the goit, lined with moss and fern and early 
primroses, which carried the water to the wheel. The 
tears rushed to her eyes, and fell unheeded; for the 
scene down yonder, so clearly pictured, seemed to sum 
up all her youth, and all her childish voyagings—with 
Stephen Royd as fairy prince and hero—through the 
tangles of the wonder-world which children make of 
little things. What a breathless horror there had been 
about the water-wheel, toiling with goblin-like ferocity 
for the man who had tamed its brute strength to useful¬ 
ness; had she not looked for a dragon to come out of 
that shadowy place, with its never-ceasing groans and 
deep lap-lap of water racing from its prison-house? 
Nay, had she not seen Stephen slay this dragon more 
than once or twice, and crowned him prince with a 
wreath of those same primroses which nestled in the 
wet banks of the goit? 

And that was over and done with now. The wheel 
was a thing of wood and iron, a hard, unlovely drudge 
that worked to make money for her fairy prince; and 
the prince himself was grown older, graver; and be¬ 
tween herself and him there could no longer be any of 
the unashamed communion which dies with childish 
dreams. 

Little Barbara picked her basket up, and turned 
toward Marshcotes with a slower step; and it was not 
until she neared the kirkyard that her wonted gaiety 
broke through the sadness and laughed it out of court. 
Parson Horrocks, seated in the study of the Parsonage, 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 65 


whose window overlooked the yard, caught sight of his 
visitor soon as she came in at the moor-gate; and he 
watched her pick her way between the graves with 
tender care for those who slept beneath. 

“ Ay, ’tis like the maid,” he murmured, wishing the 
journey were a longer one that so he might have more 
of her unstudied grace. “ Those who honour the living 
are ever kindly toward the dead. See how she stoops 
to weed the dockens from the daisies on yonder grave; 
I warrant old Jasper Royd—the rogue—sleeps softer 
on his sins for the tread of little Barbara above his 
earth.” 

The Parson rose and hurried down the stair, lest 
Barbara should knock before the door was ready with 
its welcome; and he opened to her just as she was lift¬ 
ing one brown hand to the knocker. He had a rugged 
face, the Parson, full of queer knobs and unexpected 
wrinkles; and when he showed pleasure there was no 
man in the parish who could exhibit it so broadly. 
This morning every knob, every wrinkle, seemed to 
have a droll aspect of its own, as he stood and eyed his 
visitor. 

“ No wonder I enjoyed fair dreams last night,” said 
he, keeping her still on the doorstep because a shaft 
of sunlight had found her there, interpreting the slender 
dignity of face and figure. “ I wondered what the 
meaning was—till little Barbara came to play the sooth¬ 
sayer.” 

“ Indeed, sir, I can claim no such dignity,” she 
answered curtseying gravely, “for I came only to 


66 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


tell you spring was really here at last, and to bring you 
a sitting of eggs for the speckled hen. I promised them 
a week since, did I not? ” 

“ And so you did, child; but surely you’ve not come 
all the way from Wynyates to bring me them ? ” 

Barbara did not wait his customary invitation to 
enter, but crossed the threshold and laid both hands on 
his shoulder, with the impulsive warmth that woman¬ 
hood would never kill in her. “ I came for a gossip, 
Parson Horrocks,” she laughed—“ a gossip with the 
oldest friend I have. The morning was so bright, and 
—and perhaps I thought I needed some excuse, so 
brought the eggs to keep me in good countenance. 
Were you at work? It is Friday, now I come to think 
of it—and there is your sermon—” 

“ Ay, I was in the middle of it just now. The first 
of John, third verse, little Barbara, ‘ Husbands, love 
your wives,’ and so forth. My flock is over deep in 
money-making nowadays ”—he glanced shrewdly at 
her, and was well content to see the wild roses steal 
unbidden to her cheeks—“ and they need some whole¬ 
some physic. I’m going to preach on marriage, child, 
for we are in poor case if we forget its virtues.” 

“ I must not stay then, sir. I—I should not like to 
keep you from your sermon,” said Barbara, with a con¬ 
fusion which seemed altogether needless. 

The Parson laughed, a round, jolly laugh. “ It will 
be sweeter for the gossip you have come to seek,” he 
answered, opening the parlour-door for her and bowing 
her in. “ See, child, it is too fair a day to spend in¬ 
doors; you shall have a glass of wine, and then we’ll 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 67 

go and watch the throstles building in the kirkyard 
trees. There are three nests a-building already, for I 
counted them yestreen.” 

He took a wineglass from the oaken rack, and a blue 
decanter from the press. A seed-cake too, he found, 
for his own needs were slight and he had always leisure 
to see that little luxuries were kept at hand for such 
visitors as Barbara. 

“ A glass of honest port would better meet the case,” 
he grumbled, as he watched her sip her elderberry 
wine; “ but you were always settled in your likes and 
dislikes, Barbara. Besides, my housekeeper says that 
Heaven makes the elderberries grow so thick up here, 
where little else will grow, and so she argues there’s 
a use for them. And how would the moral thrive, eh, 
Barbara, if you never came to help me with the precious 
stuff?” 

Barbara laughed, as she munched her slice of seed¬ 
cake—looking much like a child who is playing a game 
of stately calls—and took a bigger sip in token of 
defiance. “ I never enjoy any wine so much as yours, 
and your housekeeper is right,” she said. “ Parson 
Horrocks, I am so hungry after my walk, do you think 
I might finish your cake for you ? ” 

There was only a small wedge left, and after it was 
finished they went out together into the half-acre that 
was dearer to the Parson than any land in Marshcotes. 
Below, there was the peace of dead men who had found 
a welcome rest; above, the eager stir of birds, the fall 
of brown shells from breaking leaf-buds, the dance of 
midges in the sun-rays, were eloquent of the life which 


68 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


will not call death’s certainty to mind. Down by the 
Bull tavern, the sexton was whistling as he banked the 
sods above a new-made grave. 

“ A man of his hands, the sexton yonder,” said 
Parson Horrocks, pointing down the path. “ He can 
dig and plank and make all smooth again,—but he has 
no philosophy, Barbara. Yet there’s all the world in 
this old kirkyard, if he would but see it.” 

Barbara nodded quietly as she went with him from 
one weather-blackened headstone to another. It was 
the Parson’s hobby this, and he prided himself on know¬ 
ing the life-stories, the foibles and sins and virtues, of 
half the folks who in the last end of all had come to 
claim their share of good peat-earth. No name upon 
the stones but brought some old tale to his lips; and 
there were few hours to Barbara like these she spent 
in company with the Parson and the Parson’s dead. 
For the folk were her own folk, bred on the same nig¬ 
gard uplands, under the like roof of storm and sun and 
wind, and the temper of their minds was familiar as the 
scent of prickly gorse to her. 

“ Ay, and old Jasper Royd lies here,” said the Par¬ 
son, stopping for the twentieth time. “ You plucked a 
weed or two from out the daisies, Barbara, as you came 
through.” 

Again the colour stole into her face. “ He did not 
die gently, sir; I think he’s earned a little tenderness,” 
she said. 

“Die gently? It was a martyrdom. Think of it, 
Barbara! Jasper the free-handed, Jasper the reckless, 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 69 


who had done every foolish thing on earth, but never a 
cowardly one—before—” 

He glanced at Barbara, leaning on his arm, and at 
the sunlit sky, and he stopped, ashamed of the dark 
story hidden here. 

But Barbara would not let him halt there, for the 
tale left half told seemed harsher than its wont. “ He 
killed himself,” she added quietly. “ I was born that 
same summer, and the memory of it, kept green for 
many a year among the country folk, seems part of 
my own childhood.” 

“ Ay, ay, your nurse would point you out the tree in 
Conie Crag ravine, I warrant, under which they found 
him. It is haunted still, they say. Do you know, child, 
that I was the first to pass that way and see him lying 
on his side? ” 

Her hand tightened on his arm. “ I did not know,” 
she whispered. 

“ He was far gone by that time, and he could scarce 
open his eyes when I knelt beside him and felt for the 
wound. ‘ I never blinked at a fence before/ he mut¬ 
tered, ‘ but, Parson, I could not face this last/ And 
then he died, with a new fear in his eyes—fear of his 
own cowardice.” 

u Yet the excuse, sir! ” 

“ Ay, to be sure, the excuse,” echoed Parson Hor- 
rocks softly. “ He was a good friend to me, little 
Baibara, and I like to hear a maid plead tenderly for 
him\ But he could find no plea for himself in that 
last lour. He had held his head high to all the world, 


7 o 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


had kept an open door for the drunkard and the pru¬ 
dent, the poacher and the magistrate; he had courted 
his name of Jasper the Moonrake, and had borne it 
well.” The Parson glanced again at the lettered head¬ 
stone and sighed. “ Poor Jasper! There was a man’s 
heart under all the folly. Yet, when the ruin came, 
and the mortgages were pressed, and he had not even 
a crown to toss his poacher-friend at drinking-time— 
why, he could not look disaster in the face. None 
knows as I do what those few dying words meant; 
there were days of heart-burn in them, Barbara, and 
a last full hour of shame.” 

“ Yet the daisies grow as round here, and as white, 
as on his neighbour’s grave. Has he not paid in full, 
Parson? Ay, surely he has paid in full.” 

The Parson touched her gently on the shoulder. 
“ There’s no one gives me logic half as sweet as Bar¬ 
bara,” he said. Then, with another sigh, “Ah, well! 
’Tis done with, child, and you’ll wonder why I spoil 
the sunshine with such talk. Perhaps I was thinking 
of Stephen, Jasper’s only son; perhaps I had heard that 
folk were beginning to call him hard and shy of fellow¬ 
ship. Could he be less, with this behind him ? ” 

Little Barbara lifted her head with sudden pride. 
“ Let them name him what they will! ” she cried. “ Do 
you care, or do I care what they say? ” 

“ Sometimes,—an old man’s fancies are very way¬ 
ward, child,—sometimes I thought you found him less 
of a comrade than he has been. He holds himself too 
much aloof; that is his pride, which comes red-hot :rom 
old Jasper—but behind it there’s his mother’s freed, 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 


7i 


and it will carry him higher up the ladder than any of 
us dream of, Barbara.” 

Parson Horrocks had learned as much as it is good 
for a man to know of women; but he was startled when 
Barbara dropped her eyes, and loosed her fingers from 
his arm, and laughed, the lowest laugh that ever 
broke a silence. 

“ It seems so strange,” she said, a moment after— 
“ so strange to hear you plead for Stephen—plead with 
me, who—•” 

“ Finish your sentence, child. You’re growing 
worldly,” put in the other with irritable eagerness. 

She met his glance, and his disquiet deepened to see 
its roguishness. “ To plead with me, who almost 
learned to walk from him. He used to teach me how 
to find the nests of snipe and grouse and partridge, and 
why the aspens turn white faces to the wind when rain 
is coming—” 

“ Would God he’d teach you more! ” broke in the 
Parson. “ You are a grown woman now, Barbara, and 
he— Heaven pity me,” he broke off; “I never thought 
to suffer from an unruly tongue.” 

For Barbara had lost her roguishness, had lost her 
pride; and it seemed to Parson Horrocks that grief 
so voiceless and instinctive could never be assuaged. 
Yet he took heart again, when, a half-hour later, he 
had bidden farewell to Barbara at the gate; since from 
his sufficient acquaintance with women he gathered 
that one deep hope of his was like to be fulfilled. 

“ Ay, but will Stephen ever know ? ” he muttered, 
returning to his interrupted sermon. “ The lad is 


7 2 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


stubborn—it would be like him to think that pride stood 
in the way and so pave a road for some rival to walk 
over,” 

Tim o* Tab’s meanwhile, had watched Barbara go up 
the slope of Hazel Dene, and had resumed his journey 
to the mill. 

“ Nay, I cannot make cheese nor chalk on’t,” he 
muttered, shaking his head. “ Through th’ miln-yard 
is her gainest road, and yet she wodn’t come wi’ me. 
It isn’t ’at she’s ower proud to wend side by side wi’ 
Tim o’ Tab’s, for pride she hes none, save of a sort I 
like to see; an’ it isn’t because I said owt to hurt her, 
for she’d hev telled me quick enow if it hed been. 
What ails th’ maid, I wonder ? ” 

Finding no answer to his question, he trudged stolidly 
forward, with Flick the terrier following no less sedately 
at his heels, until he reached the mill. Stephen Royd 
had just dismounted from his horse, and stood in the 
yard with the bridle in his hand talking to one of the 
men; the horse’s flanks were creamed with lather, but 
Royd himself looked cool as if another than himself 
had ridden a score of miles since breakfast. From one 
side sounded the stifled thunder of the water-wheel, 
from the other came the pleasant rattle of the spin¬ 
ning-frames. 

“ Morning to ye, Maister Royd! It’s a littlish while 
sin’ me an’ ye hed dealings one wi’ t’other,” cried Tim 
cheerily. 

Royd turned sharply on his heel. “ Oh, you, is it? ” 
he said, dismissing his companion with a nod, and 
waiting until Tim came up. 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 73 


“ Ay, it’s me an’ th’ dog—or two chaps fearful like 
us. I’ve browt ye eight-and-twenty pund or so o’ 
combings, maister.” 

“ Well, it is about time you did, if it comes to that. 
How long have you had the wool, Tim? Six weeks, 
or somewhere near it.” 

“ There’s a Providence aboon us, Maister Royd,” said 
Tim, with a large gravity; “ an’ when Providence says 
a chap hes getten to break his arm, he’s getten to do 
it, choose what comes to a stone or two o’ wool. How- 
si ver, it’s joined again, hes th’ arm, an’ happen a poor 
man, wi’ his living to addle, ’ll be let do a bit of honest 
work.” 

“ Especially if he keeps clear of Wyecollar Dene, and 
other places where the hares breed thick,” put in Royd 
drily. “ Open that sack of yours, Tim,” he broke off, 
with prompt return to business. 

Tim o’ Tab’s let the wool-pack slip from his shoulders 
to the ground, and pulled out the skewers that held it. 
The combings lay in two-foot lengths of fleecy white¬ 
ness, and the sunlight, shining down full upon the mill- 
yard, spun fairy webs of mother-of-pearl among the 
fibres of the wool. Not the foam that danced on the 
brown surface of the beck, nor the rich bloom of the 
pear-tree climbing up the south wall of the mill, could 
show a whiter or a fairer aspect than these few pounds 
of carefully combed fleece; indeed, the beauty of the 
fabric on which Royd’s trade was built, no less than 
the clean and homely aspect of the mill, might well 
have reconciled a man less prejudiced than Squire Cun- 
liffe, or than Royd himself, to the new god that had 


74 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


arisen in Marshcotes parish. The wool was all combed 
by hand outside the precincts of the mill; it was woven 
by hand, likewise, in one or other of the moorland 
cottages; all that the mill had to do was to spin the 
delicate threads of these white combings into yarn— 
and brown peat water, fresh from the windy uplands, 
did all the hard work that was needful. 

But Royd had never seen beauty in a fleece, unless 
it were growing on a sheep's back; it was to him the 
symbol of his trade, whenever he paused to give other 
than a money-meaning to it, and as such he welcomed 
and disdained it. As he took up a sliver of the wool 
this morning and ran it through his fingers, its soft¬ 
ness brought a look of quiet pleasure to his face; and 
this meant that it would one day fetch a high market- 
price when woven into cloth. 

“ Tim," said he, putting down the wool and turn¬ 
ing his back on it in his own abrupt, imperious way, 
“ the devil only knows how you do it, with your slip¬ 
shod views of work, but there’s not a comber in the 
parish who brings me work like yours—so little moil 
and such a length of top, and the sliver smooth as 
beeswax! ’’ 

“ Folk are a queer lot, an’ that’s gospel,’’ said Tim, 
glancing sideways at his dog. “ I tak pains at nowt 
else i’ this life, Maister Royd, but when I get a bit o’ 
wool atween my fingers—why I’ll mother it fair like a 
lass wi’ her first babby. Mebbe I’m wide o’ th’ truth a 
bit,’’ he added softly; “ for Squire’s sake I munnot seem 
less nor a gooid workman.’’ 

“ Well, it pays me to keep a workman of that kid- 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 


75 


ney, and it pays me to make it worth his while. Tim 
o’ Tab’s, do you mean to stick to your comb and pot in 
future ? ” 

Again Tim looked at his dog, the companion of 
ancient frolics. 

“ It’s axing a lot,” he murmured. “ It’s axing a 
fearful deal, maister.” 

“ And I’m offering you a good price for it, on condi¬ 
tion you keep to it month in and month out. Did you 
ever hear that Stephen Royd thought to make money 
by buttoning up his pocket ? ” 

“ Not when there war a crown to be added by ivery 
shilling he took out,” responded Tim, with a droll 
twisting of the mouth-corners. “ Nay, Stephen Royd 
deals fair, an, alius did, by them ’at shovels in the 
brass for him. It’s a poor rider as starves his own 
nag’s belly.” 

Royd laughed drily. “ And a poor horse that doesn’t 
know its own stable. It cuts both ways, Tim o’ Tab’s. 
Well, what say you? I’ll give you a shilling a stone 
more for combings, on condition you never bring less 
that a good sackful every week.” 

“A shilling a stone?” echoed Tim. “That’ll be 
addling brass, an’ proper. It’s a big rise, maister— 
ower big to be true, I should hev said, if another than 
ye hed telled me on’t.” 

“It’s waiting for you, if you care to take it. I 
meant to offer it you long since, but you chose to break 
an arm instead of coming for it.” 

A silence fell between them; but it was clear from 
Royd’s air that he had not finished yet with Tim. 


7 6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ I rode to Bradford this morning on business,” he 
said presently, with a steady glance at Tim o’ Tab's. 

“ An' rode at a fairish pace if your mare be owt to 
go by.” 

“ They are talking wildly in Bradford—the combers, 
I mean. They say we are giving them less than a liv¬ 
ing wage, and there's talk of such a strike as has never 
been known before. Six months ago they carried 
Bishop Blaize in procession through the town, and 
shouted themselves hoarse because their trade was as 
good as they could ask for; to-day they snarl like wolves 
when a master brushes past them in the street. The 
combers are weather-cock fools who shift with every 
wind.” 

“ Well, I know nowt mich myseln about sich-like 
matters, though I'm spry when it comes to knowing 
wheer a pheasant nests. But I’ve heard say it's trade 
that shifts wi' ivery wind, an’ th' combers are like to 
follow when their bite an’ sup depends on’t.” 

“ And doesn't my bite and sup depend on it ? D’ye 
think we starve you for frolic, or that we get better 
work from an ill-fed man ? Listen to me, Tim o' Tab’s. 
There will be a strike in Bradford, and a big one; and 
I mean to keep going while other mills are lying idle; 
and you can let them know in Marshcotes and Ling 
Crag that I’ll have no frothy talk of the town-sort up 
here on the moors.” 

There was a twinkle in Tim's eye, and a frown across 
his brows, for he disliked the drift of Royd's curt 
command, at the same time that he warmed to the 
man's sturdy temper. 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 77 

“ I’ll let ’em know,” he said,—“ but whether they’ll 
hearken, maister, is th’ egg i’ another nest.” 

“ Hearken ? They’ll have to hearken, or I’ll come 
with a hunting-crop and ask them for their arguments. 
Now I’ve business to attend to. Is it to be regular 
work and an advance of a shilling a stone, or no work 
at all?” 

“ It’s to be regular work,” said Tim, after a pause; 
“ an’ I tak your meaning, Maister Royd, square as 
it’s meant. There shall none i’ Ling Crag quarrel wi’ 
their bread if I hev ony say in’t. I’ll carry four stone 
back wi’ me this week, if it’s all th’ same to ye, for I’m 
fain o’ wark after ligging idle for so long.” 

Tim was too sharp this once, for he was wrong alto¬ 
gether in his surmise that Royd was offering him a 
bribe because he had chanced to name the strike so 
soon after promising an advanced wage. The master 
of Hazel Mill had always been far-sighted enough to 
encourage a skilled workman, and he had in mind to 
raise Tim’s price long before any whisper of a strike 
had gone abroad. A bribe of the sort Tim fancied was 
another matter, and Royd would as soon have stooped 
to pick a pocket. He had mentioned the strike this 
morning because it was uppermost in his own thoughts, 
and because Tim o’ Tab’s, as the acknowledged favour¬ 
ite of the moorside, was better able than any man in 
Marshcotes to lead opinion among the workers. He 
was puzzled for a moment as he saw the confidential 
look in the rogue’s face; then, with a shrug, dismissed 
the matter, well-satisfied that he had Tim’s promise. 

Tim was in his most leisurely mood this morning, 


78 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


despite his boasted eagerness for work; and even as he 
-fastened up his pack of wool, preparatory to carrying 
it into the mill, he paused to take a long glance at the 
sky. He wished to know if it would be dark or light 
to-night upon the moors. 

“ There’s a tidy sup o’ rain brewing up yonder, 
Maister Royd,” he said, pushing the last skewer into 
place. “ I’m hoping th’ little mistress willun’t tak a 
wetting.” 

Royd had got into the saddle again, and was already 
bringing his horse round, but Tim’s careless gossip 
brought him to a halt. There was no mistaking who 
the “ little mistress ” was, for it was the title which 
affection gave her from Wyecollar to Marshcotes. 

“Why? is she abroad to-day?” he asked, and 
frowned at the impulse which had bidden him ask the 
question. 

“ Oh, ay, she’s ower at th’ Parsonage, for I met her 
up i’ th’ Dene a while back. She mud as weel hev come 
through th’ miln-yard here, but it like as it suited her 
fancy to go by Cuckoo Farm.” 

Tim o’ Tab’s, glancing carelessly at Royd, was struck 
by his silence and the still way he sat his saddle, and 
more surprised to see with what sudden spleen he drove 
the spurs into his overridden horse. 

“ That war a bit of his father,” mused Tim. “ He’s 
wilful as a stalk of ling, is Stephen Royd, for all his 
coolness; an’ he sits a horse, Lord save him, as a horse 
likes to be sat. By th’ Heart, but it’s when a man gets 
o’ horseback ’at ye can measure up his breed. There’s 
Bancroft now, his legs an’ his body an’ his horse 


IN THE GARDEN OF THE GRAVES 


79 


doan’t own no kinship, like; an’ by that token his 
father went on foot, I reckon.” 

“So Barbara shuns the mill at last, does she?” 
muttered Royd, as he breasted the steep lane that led 
to the moor. “ Ah, well, I knew it must be so one day; 
I knew it when she sang to me that night in the old 
parlour—but I scarce looked for it so soon.” 

The news he had brought back this morning from 
Bradford, the certainty in his own mind that there 
would be a strike before the year was out, offered him 
food enough for thought; but he could not bring his 
mind to bear on it. He could only remember how often 
Barbara had passed Hazel Mill on her way to Marsh- 
cotes Parsonage, how often she had stopped to peep 
in at the busy spinning-frames and to ask the master 
if he had any message for the old Parson who was 
equally a friend to both. Wilful he was, this master- 
weaver, as Tim o’ Tab’s had said, and wilfully sensi¬ 
tive to slights; and it would have taken a week of argu-. 
ment to persuade him that Barbara had any but the one 
motive for avoiding Hazel Mill. 


CHAPTER V 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 

T IM O’ TAB’S had delivered his combings to the 
foreman of the mill, had received a fresh 
supply of the raw wool, had washed it and 
packed it up; and as he went out of the yard he 
seemed to be carrying the self-same burden he had 
brought to Plazel Mill, save that this second pack was 
bulkier, and that it bowed his shoulders farther for¬ 
ward as he walked. He did not take the path up the 
Dene, however, but followed the stream’s course till it 
brought him to the stile over against Smithbank Farm, 
and so into the cart-track known as Water Lane. For 
there was no gainsaying that spring was in the air, 
and Tim’s thoughts were of a lass with red-ripe cheeks 
and saucy eyes. 

He was just turning to go through the farmyard 
when the sound of hoofs came hollow from the stone 
bridge below; and Tim changed colour when he saw 
the upright figure and grave, old-world face of Squire 
Cunliffe. He stood there shiftlessly for awhile; then, 
as the horseman came up the hill and reined in on 
seeing him, he drew near his stirrup, while Flick the 
terrier came up too for greeting. 

“ A fair day. Squire, an’ a busy one for me, as ye’ll 
be seeing,” he said. 


80 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


81 


The Squire glanced up and down the road, and his 
face seemed to lose a little of its drawn look when he 
saw that Tim and he had the cart-road to themselves. 
Each looked at the other then, and a kind of shame was 
in the glance of each,—proud shame in the Squire’s, 
and self-excusing shiftiness in Tim’s. 

“ I am glad to see you at your work again,” said the 
old man, with plain effort. 

“ There’s none fainer than myseln, an’ that’s gospel, 
Squire. I’m alius getting into some scrape, seemingly, 
choose what I do.” 

“ You must not think I blame you, Tim. I—I have 
no right to do that. But if you remembered that your 
health is my health, your sickness my sickness—it may 
be that you would have more care. But then I said as 
much to you yesternight, did I not ? ” 

Humility sat ill upon the Squire, and Tim o’ Tab’s 
was troubled by it. “ A gooid word ’ull bear saying 
twice. It’s noan that I’m war nor my neighbours,” he 
went on eagerly; “ I like as I step into ivery trap, when 
another man, ’ud hev th’ luck to walk round t’other side 
on’t. But I’ll mend, I will—I’ll mend, Squire, if I 
niver hev to look sideways at a hare again. D’ye think 
I’ve forgotten how ye fund me on Ling Crag Moor, 
lost i’ th’ snow, an’ how ye set me afront ye on your 
horse? I was littlish then, Squire, but it sticks, does 
yond memory. An’ it doan’t seem mich o’ ye to axe— 
it doan’t seem mich ’at I should keep what trouble I 
can fro’ ye.” 

The shame in the Squire’s face gave place to a softer 
look; he looked a younger man, and a kindlier, as he 


82 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


let his eyes dwell on Tim o’ Tab’s. “ Art a good lad, 
Tim—the best in Marshcotes, for all thy faults,” he 
muttered. 

“ Nay, now! Nay, Squire! There’s Flick there 
winking for varry devilment when she hears sich praise 
o’ Tim o’ Tab’s. ITowsiver there’s encouragement for 
work,” he broke off, with another sidelong glance. 
“ Maister Royd war i’ a spendthrift mood this morn, 
for he offered me a shilling more a stone for combings.” 

“ That is good hearing,” said the Squire, with a 
wintry smile. “A shilling a stone? You’ll be a rich 
man by and by. How comes it, Tim? Mr. Royd does 
not part lightly with his money.” 

“ Nay, there’s talk of a strike down Bradforth way, 
an’ I reckon Maister Royd thinks to tak th’ wind out 
o’ th’ combers’ sails up here, by gi’eing what they want 
afore they axe for’t.” 

The old Squire’s mouth went harder, and his voice 
deepened. 

“ They say we gentlefolk know nothing of the poor 
man’s hardships,” he said softly, and stopped, and 
looked very wistfully at Tim o’ Tab’s. 

“ They’re wrang time an’ time,” Tim ventured. 

“ Ay, for I wonder there’s not a strike at every 
twelve-month’ end. They sell their sweat for a pit¬ 
tance, and thank the masters for allowing them to live 
at all,—and— Nay, Tim, I must not turn radical just 
because trade has come into the parish,” he broke off, 
laughing gently. 

Tim was hard put to it to find words; for the Squire’s 
laugh was sad as the burden of his words,—a burden 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


83 


that only these two understood,—these two, the Squire, 
with his proud air of breeding which no kindliness of 
face could hide, and the ill-clad ne’er-do-weel with the 
patched eye that bore witness to some long-past and 
desperate affray at poaching. It was a scene incon¬ 
gruous, and the sunlight, flooding all the dip of Water 
Lane, seemed to bring out and emphasise the hundred 
points of difference between this ill-matched couple. 

“ Squire,” said the younger man at last, swinging 
his oil-can softly to and fro and watching it strike 
flashes from the sun,—“ Squire, I wodn’t hev you tak 
a little thing so mich to heart. What if us poor men 
sell our sweat? We’re born to’t, same as ducks is born 
to waiter, an’ it’s better to sell nor to gi’e for naught, 
if ye come to think on’t. It ’ud be different for sich 
as ye, now—varry different—an’ ye cannot no way put 
yourselns i’ our place.” 

“ It may not be,” muttered the other. “ It may not 
be, Tim.” 

“ As weel try to rear an eagle, i’ a hen roost. Th’ 
hens are suited weel enow, but th’ eagle ’ud fret itseln 
to death, I reckon. Eh, Squire, but it’s a queer world! 
An’ things is most on ’em wrang side uppermost.” 

The Squire sighed as he looked up the lane; and then 
his proud face quivered on the sudden, for not five- 
score yards away was Bancroft of the Heights, riding 
at a foot-pace down the hill and smiling in his own 
empty fashion at the scene below him. Tim, following 
the direction of the other’s glance, screwed his mouth 
up sourly and turned about. 

“ I’ll bid ye gooid-day, Squire,” he said. “ Maister 


8 4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Bancroft like as he fears to get muckied by touching 
sich as me, and—” 

“ You will come to-night?” broke in the Squire, 
stooping to Tim’s ear. 

“ To-neet, Squire, if all goes well; an’ gooid luck to 
ye,” he added impulsively. 

Ashamed of his warm rush of feeling toward the 
Squire, he went through the farm-yard at a brisk pace, 
nor did he once turn back, but growled to himself as 
he walked, and wished another than fool Bancroft of 
the Heights had seen them. 

“ Why, Squire, well met upon the road! ” cried 
Bancroft, coming down the hill at an uneasy half-trot, 
and pulling up his thoroughbred with difficulty. “ You 
were keeping curious company just now; do I disturb 
you?” 

“ In a measure, yes,” answered the old man, stiffening 
as if a cold wind from the east had blown on him; “ in 
a measure you do disturb me, Mr. Bancroft, for I was 
talking to a scapegrace and bidding him mend his 
ways.” 

Bancroft had his own view of the intimacy between 
the Squire and Tim o’ Tab’s—a view which half the 
parish shared—and a faint light of mockery crossed 
his face. 

“ The lesson was much needed, sir,” he answered 
smoothly. “ If you had bidden him keep clear of my 
own lands, it would not have been amiss. Game is 
scarcer at the Heights, I suspect, than it would be if 
Tim lived farther off. Some day I look to catch him 
at it, and—” 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


85 


“ The topic is distasteful, Mr. Bancroft,” interposed 
the other coldly. “ I ride for home—your way, I 
think, lies otherwise ? ” 

Bancroft wheeled his horse about, with easy disre¬ 
gard of the Squire’s aloofness. 

“ My way is yours, sir, if you’ll have it so,” he said. 

The Squire inclined his head, with little goodwill in 
his acquiescence, and they rode up the hill in silence. 

“ How is little Barbara? It is a week and a day 
since I caught even a passing glimpse of her,” said 
Bancroft presently. 

“Barbara?” echoed the other, lifting his brows. 
“ She would scarcely give you the right, I fancy, Mr. 
Bancroft, to call her by that name.” 

A certain coarseness in the grain served Bancroft 
well this morning, so far as following his purpose went. 
Another man would have found the moment unpro- 
pitious, for the Squire was over gentle and over courte¬ 
ous to whip the least of his acquaintance with his 
tongue unless some strong dislike or personal trouble 
had frayed his temper for the moment. Bancroft, how¬ 
ever, saw only that the Squire’s words had given him 
an opening. 

“ I want her to give me the right, sir,” he answered 
quickly; “ and it was to talk of this I turned back with 
you just now.” 

The Squire reined in, and sat there, quiet in the 
saddle, and looked Bancroft through and through. He 
had expected some such avowal any time these six 
months past; but this morning he had not looked for 
it, and it came too swiftly on the heels of late disquiet. 


86 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


The same strained look was on his face as had been 
there when he talked with Tim o’ Tab’s in Water Lane; 
and Bancroft, waiting for his answer, could make noth¬ 
ing of the mixture of welcome and distaste with which 
the Squire seemed to be regarding his proposal. 

“ I—I cannot tell,” muttered the old man at last. 
“ This comes very suddenly, Mr. Bancroft, and my 
daughter is dearer to me than you can guess. You 
must allow me leisure, sir; you must let me weigh 
the matter fairly.” 

“ Is my fortune too little, Squire?” broke in the 
other. It had seemed to him until now that he was 
doing honour to little Barbara by asking for her hand, 
and it nettled him to find his overtures so cavalierly 
met. 

“ Your fortune leaves nothing to be desired,” an¬ 
swered the Squire, with an irony so subtle in his tone 
that it seemed directed as much against himself as 
against this well-favoured ruffler with his boisterous, 
half-bred air. “ Your fortune leaves nothing, sir, to 
be desired,” he repeated; “but Barbara is not to be 
measured by a price.” 

“Yet even Barbara cannot go lacking all the things 
that money buys; she will need food and raiment, 
Squire, and a house above her head. That was why I 
named my fortune.” 

Another change came over the Squire’s face. 
“ True,” he murmured, “ true, she will need all these 
things.” Then, after a pause, “ Mr. Bancroft, I cannot 
answer you just yet. Barbara is young, and her fancy 
over light to brook hard driving.” 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


*7 


“And I am nearing thirty, Squire, and my fancy 
wants to settle,” retorted Bancroft brusquely. “ The 
lands are there, and love will follow in good time if you 
will trust her to my keeping.” 

“ Your lands? ” cried the Squire, with another flash 
of spleen that bore witness to the tenseness of his hu¬ 
mour. “ You take the longest road to my favour, Mr. 
Bancroft, when you bring your beggarly lands to plead 
for you. Am I a pauper, think ye, that the maid need 
go begging for a home? ” 

Bancroft might have learned much from the Squire’s 
face, had he been skilled to read it—might have seen 
the war of many passions with much prudence, and 
under all a depth of self-disdain and soul-sickness that 
was tragic in its hopelessness. But Bancroft of the 
Heights was busy with his own hard calculations; Bar¬ 
bara would be no pauper, nor would he in that case 
have been asking for her hand upon this upland road; 
and while he measured Barbara’s beauty and the for¬ 
tune in one balance, and told himself he must speak 
this proud old man more softly, the Squire, too, was 
bethinking him of prudence. 

“ We must not quarrel, sir,” said the younger man, 
more smoothly. “ I will give my lands to the next 
beggar by the wayside if they stand between myself and 
Barbara.” 

“Tut, tut! A young man’s folly. No, Mr. Ban¬ 
croft, you shall keep your lands,”—the other winced a 
little,—“ and you shall come to me, say, in a month’s 
time, and hear my answer. And now, good-day to 
you; I would not take you past your turning.” 


88 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Bancroft halted a moment, as if inclined for further 
speech, then lifted his beaver and struck off into the 
lane on the right hand that led him to the Heights. 
And after he was gone a change complete and pitiable 
came over old Squire Cunliffe. 

“ I dared not let the chance go by,” he groaned. 
“ Yet how will little Barbara take it? I have watched 
her grow—she was no higher than the summer corn 
when first I taught her to take pride in being a Cunliffe. 
Pride? Ay, and will she stoop to such as Bancroft of 
the Heights?” 

He looked back toward Water Lane, and thought of 
how he had seen Tim o’ Tab’s with his wool-pack over 
his shoulders. “ You know, Tim,” he muttered, “ you 
know how grievous hard for me it is! ” 

Tim, however, for all his ready sympathy with the 
Squire, was not thinking of any man’s troubles at the 
moment; for he had crossed the yard of Smithbank 
Farm and had surprised this warm and merry April in 
her most playful mood. Hazel Beck had watered many 
kinds of landscape in its course; it had known the 
barren peat, and the wind-whistling wastes where the 
sky is bigger than the land; it had wandered through 
the shade of Hazel Dene, where the sky was almost 
hid, and every patch of moss or greensward was im¬ 
portant in its littleness; and now it was free to the 
air again, save for the catkined alders on its banks, 
and here and there a sapling ash or smooth-bowled 
rowan-tree. From Ling Crag village to the stream 
round pastures sloped, with a steep and narrow cause- 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


89 


way showing grey against the cropped green grass; 
beyond, the fields swelled up until the edge of Marsh- 
cotes Moor reached down its ragged fingers to snatch 
his hard-won acres from the husbandman; there was a 
little bridge across the stream, and fair in the sheltered 
hollow on the far side lay a cottage, square-built and 
lichened as the mistal that flanked its northern end. 
Deep sunlight and deep peace filled up the valley to 
its brim, and the farther farmsteads on the slope seemed 
kindly guardians of this cottage in the hollow; and 
bees were sleepy all about the hives that topped the 
tiny garden. 

“ It’s a lovesome spot, choose who hears me say’t,” 
murmured Tim o’ Tab’s, as his dog and he stepped 
pratly down the causeway toward the stream. “ An’ a 
lovesome lass, if iver I set een on one,” he added, as 
he caught a glimpse of white drapery between the leaves 
below. 

She was seated under the alder-tree beside the bridge, 
and she was singing as she plied her wheel. A buxom 
lassie, with a look of the wind in her plump cheeks, and 
a look of teeming spring in all her round young body. 
Her arms, her neck, and all that showed beneath the 
folds of her white stomacher, were brown and whole¬ 
some, and under the dark lashes a pair of darker eyes 
looked out upon a world of which they had no fear. 

“ Shame that lasses mun go lacking, 

While the daft lads chew their straws,” 

she was singing, and the hum of her father s loom from 
the open upper window of the cottage added its own 
low and soothing burden to her song. 


90 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


The voice was wayward and untutored, but it had 
the blackbird’s mellow rush of life in it—the note that 
tingles through a hawthorn-brake in spring with its 
own full flood of passion. Tim heard the song soon 
as he came to the hill-crest up above, and he moved 
more jauntily beneath his load of wool. 

“ Shame that lasses mun go lacking,” began the lassie 
once again, as she fixed a new thread to the distaff. 

“ Lacking what, Tabitha? ” said Tim o’ Tab’s. 

Tabitha Hirst turned with a start, and saw Tim’s 
shrewd face twinkling at her from underneath his load 
of wool. “ Nay, Tim, tha flaired me! ” she cried. “ I 
never heard thee—” 

“ Grass is gooid for a thief’s foot,” laughed Tim, 
disencumbering him of his wool-pack and standing 
on the far side of the stream. “ What is’t that th’ 
lasses are all lacking so fearful sore? Happen I mud 
be of service like, for I am counted a handy chap.” 

“ Lacking ? A bit o’ sense i’ th’ men-folk, to be sure. 
But that they’ll niver get, if they bide a score of 
Christmases.” 

“Tha’rt right, Tabitha; for they’ll alius run th’ way 
a woman points, an’ that war niver known to lead to 
owt but fooilishness.” 

“ They say i’ Ling Crag ’at Tim o’ Tab’s is a rare un 
to waste all folk’s time, his own as week I’m thrang, 
Tim, if ye had een to see it wi\” 

“ Well, am I hindering thee, lass? It fair warms me 
like a drop o’ liquor to see thy fingers wending in an’ 
out so pratly. Dost know what browt me here this 
morn? ” 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


9i 


“ Idleness.” 

“ Part, mebbe, an’ part summat else. I seed th’ little 
mistress a while back up i’ tlT Dene, an’ she war full 
o' spring like till I spake o’ Hazel Miln; an’ I seed 
Maister Royd at after, an’ he war full o’ trade till I 
spake o’ Mistress Barbara; an’ so I put two an’ two 
together, as th’ saying is, an’ reckoned there mun be 
summat atween ’em.” 

“ Eve guessed as mich long sin’,” put in Tabitha, 
who, like all her sex, could not admit that gossip of 
such a kind was new to her. “ I doan’t see, either, why 
that should bring thee here.” 

“ Well, it’s catching, ’specially on such a warm-bel¬ 
lied day as this,” said Tim light-heartedly. “ It comes 
as natural to a man, does th’ sight of a lass, wi’ such 
spring weather, as cropping clover comes to sheep. 
Tha’rt bonnier nor most, Tabitha, an’ tha hes th’ same 
name as my mother hed, which is enough for a gooid 
son.” 

“ Owt’s enough for thee, when tha wants to do a bit o’ 
laking,” said Tabitha, glancing through long lashes at 
him. “ If all th’ lasses i’ Ling Crag paid heed to all 
tha said, thy farm ’ud grow as mony missuses as it 
grows bents.” 

Tim o’ Tab’s grew thoughtful on the sudden, and 
turned toward the spot where he had last had speech 
of the old Squire; and then his glance returned to 
Tabitha, with a queer tenderness that seemed to be 
laughing at itself. 

“ One missus goes a far way,” he said slowly—“ a 
varry far way, so I’m telled, let alone a score on ’em. 


92 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


But 1 niver told ony lass i’ the moorside 'at she war 
half as gladsome to set een on as Tabitha Hirst." 

“ Looks is cheap," murmured Tabitha. “ Ony lad 
could axe me for a look an' be sure o' getting it.” 

Tim o' Tab’s was never less than wideawake to 
opportunities. He crossed the stream-way nimbly and 
put an arm about the lassie’s waist, upsetting the 
spinning-wheel in his haste to take her warm mood 
flying. He freed her by and by, but not until he had 
claimed what few men in Ling Crag could ask with any 
surety of gaining. And then they looked each at the 
other, with laughter in their eyes and something of the 
spring’s own devilry. 

“ For shame! ’’ said Tabitha, stooping to pick up her 
whee^—“ For shame," she repeated by and by, in a 
still blither voice. 

“ It war natur’," Tim o’ Tab’s observed; “ an’ there’s 
no wench so set on her way as natur’.’’ 

“ My kisses are my own, I’d hev ye knaw." 

“Tasting’s believing, Tabitha; an’ whether they be 
yourn or mine, I’ll answer for’t they’re sweet." 

A retort was on her lips, but it was checked by the 
sight of a big-bodied fellow who came round the corner 
of the cottage." 

“ Billy Puff, begow! ’’ murmured Tim, with a droll 
wink. 

Billy Puff was the parish constable, and as he wad¬ 
dled toward the bridge he oozed importance from every 
easily opened pore, as befitted one who had His Ma¬ 
jesty’s Peace in keeping; and when he saw his old 
enemy Tim, he puffed his cheeks out still more vigor- 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


93 


ously, in the fashion that had earned him his name. 
For Tim, in his eyes, represented all that was most 
lawless in the parish, with a nimble wit, moreover, to 
back his lawlessness. 

“ Tabitha,” Tim whispered behind his hand, “ dost 
knaw Billy Puff talks up an’ dahn an’ says he thinks 
o’ wedding thee?” 

Tabitha tossed her head, and shot a wrathful glance 
at the advancing constable. 

“ He says he's noan just sure about it yet,” went on 
the other; “ he reckons he’ll bide, Tabitha, seeing ’at 
there’s no lass for a league around but wants him; I’ve 
heard him say myseln ’at it’s hard for a man to choose 
when ivery cap is set at him.” 

Billy Puff was nearing the bridge by this time, his 
usual stilted gait softened to a would-be airiness, and 
his red face full of pompous gallantry. 

“ A fair day, Tabitha, an’ warm for th’ time o’ year,” 
he began in a voice that matched his figure. 

The weather was a never-failing topic with Billy 
Puff; but he did not understand that one man may 
talk of spring and find his way to a maid’s heart, 
while another makes little headway with speech of 
wind and sky. 

“ Ay, it’s warm, if the look o’ thy face be owt to 
go by,” assented Tabitha, bending over her wheel with 
new-found earnestness. 

“ Well, mebbe I am what ye’d call a fresh-complex- 
ioned man,” said Billy apprehensively. “ ’Tis not ivery 
one—Lord be thanked for’t—as can show sich a sap¬ 
less, benty-coloured skin as Tim o’ Tab’s.” 


94 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ That’s so/’ put in Tim, with a grave air; “ it’s not 
ivery one—Lord be thanked for’t—who looks to die 
of apoplexy i’ his latter end.” 

The constable turned a shade paler, for he was 
sensitive to any hint of bodily infirmity, as fat and 
pompous men are wont to be; and Tabitha, as women 
on their side are wont to be, had a keen eye for a man’s 
weaknesses. 

“ I’ve feared for ye mony a time,” she said, looking 
up from her wheel with make-believe solicitude. “ There 
war Jabez Ramsbottom, now, o’ Slithery Ford—he 
had mich o’ thy fresh complexion, Billy, an’ walked 
like thee, wi’ a slow-sure sort o’ step; an’ he died i’ pain, 
did Jabez.” 

Billy Puff took out a red-and-yellow handkerchief 
from the tail of his wide-bottomed coat, and wiped his 
brow. “ Died i’ pain, did he? ” he murmured faintly. 

Tabitha’s solicitude increased. “ Ay, he tore th’ 
blankets into little strips, they say, he war that far gone 
wi’ pain; an’ Jonathan Scull—he war a bone-setter 
ower Bradford way—said as how he’d emptied ower 
mony ale-pots i’ his time, an’ weel-fleshed men could 
niver stand up long agen an ale-pot.” 

The constable was fond of his glass, and Tabitha 
grew outwardly more tender toward him, and inwardly 
more filled with laughter, as she watched from the 
corner of her eyes how he was taking this. 

“ I remember Jabez Ramsbottom; he war a full- 
fleshed chap an’ a likely—same as Billy here—till th’ 
flesh grew ower big an’ swallowed him,” said Tim o’ 
Tab’s, with a long sigh. 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


95 


“ Eve not felt ower weel lately,” murmured the con¬ 
stable, moving restlessly from foot to foot; “ I’m taken 
that short i’ th’ wind ye wodn’t believe when I’ve getten 
to clamber up a hill. He died i’ grievous pain, ye 
say?” 

“ Ay,” assented Tim, looking sadly at his dog; “ an' 
he war fearful set on wedlock, too, war Jabez. I mind 
he talked big all up an dahn Ling Crag—it war th’ 
varry week afore he died—how he could hev ony lass 
i’ th’ parish to wife if he could nobbut mak up his 
mind which to choose.” 

Billy Puff was a slow man, but he doubted Tim at all 
times, and something in his barefaced repetition of 
certain boastful utterances of his own moved the con¬ 
stable to look under the surface of all this doleful talk. 

“ Tha’rt right, Tim,” put in Tabitha; “he hed 
thoughts o’ wedding me, hed Jabez, once he war sartin- 
sure I suited him. But he war niver one to choose i’ 
a hurry, when ivery cap on th’ moorside war set at 
him.” 

The constable, awake now to the fact that he had 
been “ trailed,” puffed out his cheeks like smithy-bel¬ 
lows. “ We’ve fallen on queer times, I’m thinking,” 
he said, with loud breaths between his words. “ His 
Majesty’s law is nowt, seemingly, i’ Marshcotes par¬ 
ish.” 

“ Well, it isn’t mich, if ye come to think on’t,” as¬ 
sented Tim cheerily. “ There’s nobbut thee i’ all th’ 
moorside knaws what th’ law is, Billy.” 

“ Tha’ll knaw it by and by,” snapped Billy. “ I’ve 
hed my een on thee, Tim o’ Tab’s, mony a month, an’ 


9 6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


I warn thee to mend thy ways for fear of His Majesty’s 
displeasure. It’s fearful like treason to trail a constable 
o’ th’ peace—ay, an’ I knew a man be transported for 
life for less nor that.” 

“ Begow, we’re in for’t then, Flick lass! ” said Tim, 
glancing at the terrier with mock apprehension. 

“ Ye will be in for’t one day, an’ I give ye fair 
warning,” said the constable, thrusting out his lower 
man as if to emphasise his bulk. “ Bide till I catch 
thee at thy games, Tim o’ Tab’s, an’ I’ll learn ye what 
folk get for trailing Billy Puff.” 

“ Nay, Billy, I’m nobbut a little un.” pleaded the 
rascal. “ Tha shouldn’t flair me so.” 

“ I’ll wish thee gooid-day, Tabitha, an’ likelier com¬ 
pany,” said the constable, disdaining any direct re¬ 
sponse to Tim o’ Tab’s. “ There’s niver ony mak o’ 
gooid i’ one-eyed men, Tabitha, for they’re all blind on 
th’ side where th’ road points to law an’ godliness.” 

“ I’ve knawn folk wi’ one eye see more nor Billy Puff 
can see wi’ two. It’s all th’ way ye use what ye’ve 
getten, as th’ poacher said when he nobbled keeper Jim 
wi’ the end of a blackthorn stick.” 

“ Now, doan’t go Billy! ” struck in Tabitha. “ Ling 
Crag is full o’ wenches ready to set their caps at ye, 
an’ it’s noan safe for a bonnie lad like thee.” 

“ Tha’ll be catched, Billy, sure as iver they set een 
on thee. I wodn’t go, not I, if I war a handsome chap 
like Billy Puff.” 

The constable was already retreating up the stream, 
blowing as he went; and Tabitha and Tim laughed 
softly one to another at the likeness between Billy’s gait 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


97 

and the self-important waddling of a drake who knows 
the ducks are watching him. 

“We trailed owd Billy, an’ proper. He’s heavy i’ th’ 
wind an’ th’ wit, is Billy,” Tim cried. 

“ I’m feared he’ll mak it warm for thee, all th’ same, 
once he gets a chance,” said Tabitha, a shade of appre¬ 
hension in her face. 

“ Ay, but he’ll hev to catch me first, an’ that’ll not 
be this side of a June Christmas, I’m thinking. No 
need to axe where thy father is, Tabitha,” he broke off, 
glancing at the upper window of the cottage, from which 
the bustling music of the loom still sounded; “ I could 
tell th’ way Jonathan throws his shuttle from a score 
of others—there’s a ring an’ a crispness wi’ th’ sound 
on’t.” 

“ Ay, father’s up i’ th’ chamber, weaving. An’ 
mother’s goan to buy a pig off Jacob o’ Stouprise Farm. 
So I’m by myseln, Tim, i’ a way o’ speaking,” said 
Tabitha, with a roguish, sidelong look at him. 

“ It’s a varry gooid place for thy father, is th’ 
chamber,” murmured Tim, “ for he’d skift me fine an’ 
sharp if he knew ’at I war here. He’s noan best pleased 
to see me here at ony time, isn’t Jonathan Hirst.” 

“ He’s ower thrang by habit, an’ busy folk doan’t 
seem to tak to ye, I’ve noticed,” answered Tabitha, 
with a soft laugh. “ Besides I’m spinning yarn for 
him, an’ he’ll need it by an’ by, for he weaves at a 
flairsome speed.” 

Tim was silent for awhile, watching the girl’s fingers 
moving to and fro amongst the sunlit strands of wool. 
“ Times is changing, Tabitha, an’ not for th’ better,” 


98 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


he said, stretching himself lazily beside his terrier and 
hearkening to the threefold music of the labourers,— 
the hum of Tabitha’s wheel and hum of the untiring 
loom, and hum of the honey-gathering bees. 

“ How so? Times is mich as they war, I reckon— 
buckets o’ rain, an’ a bit o’ sunshine now an’ again.” 

“ Nay, they’re worsening. Th’ milns hev come into 
Ling Crag, an’ sooin tha’ll hev to wark betwixt four 
walls, ’stead of sitting at thy doorstun.” 

Tabitha’s face flushed a dusky red; for there was 
more than honest labour implied by working in a mill. 
“ I’ll thank thee to talk i’ a more seemly fashion,” she 
flashed. “ Tha’s as good as said I should be a factory- 
hand one day, Tim o’ Tab’s, an’ I’d sooiner drown i’ 
th’ beck yonder.” 

“ Soft, now, lass! Ther’s them i’ th’ parish—one on 
’em’s talking to ye—’at ’ud niver let that come to ye.” 

“ My father wodn’t, for one,” she retorted, her anger 
unappeased by Tim’s soft suggestion. “ We can addle 
a living an’ plenty to spare, thank ye, without miln- 
walls about us.” 

“ Well, I hope as mich, lass, though there’s talk o’ 
power-looms as weel as spinning-jennies; an’ th’ Lord 
knows what’ll come to us all when th’ master-weavers 
get all our w omen-folk.” 

“They shallun’t!” cried Tabitha fiercely. “There 
war sin an’ there war sorrow enow i’ Ling Crag afore 
iver a master-weaver came; but they’ve made bad war, 
an,’—” 

“ But there’s Maister Royd, now,” put in Tim. “ He 
can hev a wench to wark for him, an’ let her be.” 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


99 


A smile broke through the lassie’s frowns; young 
blood and spring together would not let her see the 
dark side too long. “ Ay, for Maister Royd is like a 
stalk o’ ling wi’ th’ frost on’t; ” she cried—“ ower stiff 
for marlaking wi’, an’ if he bends he breaks i’ two. 
That’s th’ way on’t, Tim; ye men are all one way or 
t’other—awther so hard it makes us shiver just to look 
at ye, or so flairsome hot ye burn a body. I could wish, 
time an’ time, that Maister Royd war warmer like when 
he saw a snod lass tripping by him; ’twould do him 
gooid.” 

“ Well, ye can’t say I’m lacking that way, choose 
what,” put in Tim heartily. “ I’m warm as lighted 
peats where I’ve a right to be warm—an’ that’s wi’ thee, 
Tabitha.” 

“ Tha’s getten no right,” murmured Tabitha, dis¬ 
entangling a knot from her skein. “ ’Tis nawther axed 
nor gi’en, Tim o’ Tab’s.” 

Tim got to his feet, and all his certainty that he 
could never, for Squire Cunliffe’s sake, be wed, vanished 
in a sudden resolve. She was so tempting, with the sun 
in her black hair and the shadow on her half-averted 
face. His purpose was forestalled, however, for a 
rough head was thrust from the upstairs window of 
the cottage, and a rough voice rang down to the hollow 
of the streamway— 

“ Tim o’ Tab’s, ye raffle-coppin, what th’ dangment 
do ye want wi’ Tabitha? ” 

Tim tried to look dismayed as he glanced up. “ Nay, 
I wanted nowt, Jonathan, save to see if I could help 
her spin a bit,” he said. 


L.ofC. 


100 


MI'STRESS BARBARA 


" Thee help? As vveel axe th’ wind to come an’ sit 
at th’ spindle. Tabitha, is yond weft ready? tha mun- 
not keep me waiting.” 

“ Flick lass, we’ll be wending,” murmured Tim. 
“ There’s a time for all things, an’ it’s time for flitting 
now. I’ll come to th’ garden-top to-neet, Tabitha,” he 
whispered, as he crossed the bridge. “ I’d weel like to—” 

“ Like to what, Tim? ” 

“ To hear if ye kept your father waiting for his weft, 
or no,” he laughed, and struck up the fields just as 
Jonathan Hirst sent down his rough-edged bass again. 

He walked briskly up toward Water Lane, and as 
he climbed the stile he told himself that maybe all was 
for the best; if old Jonathan had not cut short his woo¬ 
ing, he might have been a promised man by this time, 
with the double burden of a sweetheart and a secret on 
his hands. He had scarce gone fifty yards before he 
met Mistress Barbara coming down the lane on her way 
from Marshcotes Parsonage. 

“ I’m i’ a difficulty like, Mistress Barbara,” said Tim. 

“ Then let me solve it for you,” she said, smiling. 

“ Well, it’s this way. Blood’s blood, ’specially when 
it’s hot; an’ a lass is a lass; an’ I’d be fain to wed, if 
only I could see my way to’t.” 

“ And why not, Tim? they say in Ling Crag that a 
wife would keep you soberer—and I think that perhaps 
they’re right.” 

“ Well, now, I wodn’t be too sure o’ that. She mud, 
or she mudn’t, there’s niver no telling. Howsiver I’d 
tak th’ risk o’ that, Mistress Barbara, if I nobbut dared.” 

“ If you dared? I thought you brave, Tim.” 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


ioi 


“ Ay, but it’s noan just a matter o’ myseln. I’ve 
getten a secret to keep; if ’twar my own I wodn’t care, 
but it belangs another man, an’ I’m bound, so to say, 
to look arter it more careful like.” 

Barbara had been regarding him with playful, 
friendly eyes; but she dropped them now, and plucked 
a sprig of thyme from the bank behind her, and rubbed 
it absently between her palms. 

“ My father’s secret—is it not that you mean ? ” she 
faltered. 

“ Nay, now! ” put in the other hurriedly; “ I said a 
secret, but I niver said it war th’ Squire’s. What, 
mistress! There’s part talk up an’ dahn th’ moorside, 
about black magic, an’ th’ Lord knaws what; but ye 
munnot pay no heed to’t.” 

“ How can I help, Tim, how can I help? ” she broke 
in. “ He works in the night hours, and keeps all 
knowledge from me of what his work may be. You 
know what he does; but his own daughter has to go 
sorrowing—sorrowing, and fearing, Tim, she knows 
not what.” 

“ See ye, Mistress Barbara, I’m a rum un, an’ that’s 
gospel, but I niver lied to man nor woman, let alone 
to sich as ye. An’ when I tell ye Squire knaws his own 
business best, when I tell ye he’s right to wark as he 
does, an’ right to keep it from ye—why I’ve a fancy 
ye’ll believe me.” 

Barbara held the crushed thyme to her face for 
awhile, as if its fragrance pleased her. “ So you wish 
to be married, Tim ? ” she said, with abrupt change of 
topic. 


102 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ I’ve a leaning that way, mistress. Ye’ll knaw th’ 
lass, an’ all—Tabitha Hirst, an’ her een as black as 
dog-berries.” 

“ Yes, I’m fond of Tabitha. She would make you a 
good wife.” Barbara’s air was important, with the 
sweet importance of the girl who brings all her weight 
of inexperience to bear upon a weighty matter. 

“ There’d be war wives i’ Ling Crag,” assented Tim 
guardedly,—“ but what o’ th’ secret? I’m single now, 
ye see, an’ if a lass axes me owt I doan’t want to tell 
her—why, there’s th’ kine to be tended, or a stone o’ 
wool wants combing, or I’ve getten to see a chap ower 
Cranshaw way. But when ye’re wed, there’s no sich 
slippings off; she eats wi’ ye’, and lives wi’ ye, an’ th’ 
back-end o’ your mind is sure to peep out unawares 
sooin or late.” 

“ Perhaps she would keep the secret, Tim,” laughed 
Barbara. 

Tim glanced at her with unaffected wonderment. 
“What, a wench? Nay, now, Mistress Barbara; as 
weel hod sand i’ a sieve as gossip i’ a wench’s tongue.” 

Barbara looked at him in a puzzled fashion; it was 
hard to say at all times whether Tim were jesting, and 
yet this morning there was an undernote of earnestness 
in his banter. 

“But, Tim, do you mean it?” she cried; “or is it 
just that Tabitha is not as willing as you would have 
her be? ” 

“Well, as to that, I war niver one to boast; but 
women’s that contrairy, she mud hev me if I axed her 
—ay, I’ve a fancy she’d have me if I nobbut axed her.” 


A WATERSIDE WOOING 


103 


“ Then, Tim,” said Barbara, nodding gravely at him 
as she started up the hill, “ you had better ask her be¬ 
fore she changes,—and—maybe she will keep the secret 
after all.” 

“ Mebbe,” growled Tim, after she was gone like a 
sun-ray up the steep of Water Lane. “ It’s easy for th’ 
little mistress to look no further nor th’ tip of her bonnie 
nose—but what ’ud Squire say? Poor Squire! It 
hid break his heart if th’ parish got to knaw 011’t.” 

Yet Barbara was not thinking as lightly of the mat¬ 
ter as Tim supposed; and while she thought his doubts 
were make-believe, and in part ridiculous, she could 
not rid her of the trouble that mention of her father’s 
secret never failed to bring. What was it that the 
Squire did, night by night, up yonder in the eerie 
laithe ? 

But she found no better answer to that question now 
than she had done a score times before. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 

T HE Marshcotes farmers had all the outlook of 
their kind upon the weather, regarding it as 
in some sort a child of their own rearing, and 
dreading to spoil it by any approach to flattery or com¬ 
mendation; and so they had no praise for this spring 
that was breaking over moor and dingle, over steep 
pasture-fields and primrosed coppices, and pattering, 
fern-grown streams. Yet the younger men had seen 
no season like it, nor could their elders of four-score 
years remember more than one April that had stepped so 
firmly and so sweetly into May; and men like Parson 
Horrocks—who left the weather to itself, and were 
glad to be rid of such a tricky burden—looked out across 
the hills and owned that God had vouchsafed a very 
present miracle. The wildness was gone, the wet 
whimpering of the storm, the throb of tragedy; the 
waste was peopled, and where the ling had bent dishev¬ 
elled branches to the peat, green buds were swelling, 
and grouse were busy with their yearly housewifery. 
Yet even the Parson could not find his wonted gladness 
in the spring; and if the evils of the new trade were 
troubling him, the difficulties of it were dulling Stephen 
Royd no less effectually to the fret of all green things. 
104 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


105 


Stephen Royd, no less than the farmers and the Par¬ 
son, had opportunities of watching the warm progress 
of the season; for only the spinning of the yarn was 
done in Hazel Mill—not all of that, indeed—and there 
were hand-weavers, combers, spinners, each to be vis¬ 
ited at their own cottages; there was the Thursday 
market to be attended at Bradford, the Saturday 
market at Halifax; he was perpetually in the sad¬ 
dle, perpetually in touch with the lone uplands that 
lay between himself and every place of business that 
he visited. No man in Ling Crag had a fairer chance 
of watching the warm progress of the season; yet it 
passed him by until the middle week of May. 

For there was more than a hot summer brewing in 
this spring of 1825. Many of the mill-masters in the 
towns refused to believe what the clearer-sighted men 
saw only too plainly; the wool-combers had always 
been a grumbling set of folk, they said, and always 
would be, and their present discontent was not deep 
enough to force them into the risks and privations of a 
strike. But Royd, who took the trouble to go among 
the Bradford combers, to listen to their talk and gauge 
the temper of their discontent—Royd knew that a strike 
would come as surely as the potato-crop and the in¬ 
gathering of the hay; and all his efforts during these 
long weeks of spring, while yet the cloud of disaster 
showed no bigger than a man’s hand, were directed 
toward the safety of his own trade during the troublous 
time. There was no union of the master-weavers in 
Marshcotes and Ling Crag with those of the bigger 
towns; they were a race to themselves, trading in their 


io6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


own fashion in the lonely cleft of moor that harboured 
them, and even in their own commonwealth they were 
not united, but fought each for himself, neither giving 
nor demanding help from one another. Had the ques¬ 
tion of honour stepped in, there would have been no 
man more handicapped by scruples than Stephen Royd, 
for gentility was still strong to clog his keener business 
instincts; but honour did not touch the question, and 
he saw that he might lift his fortunes clear into the 
affluence he craved if only he could keep his combers 
busy while the looms of other masters stood unfed and 
idle. He had always paid better wages than the ma¬ 
jority of his fellows; he meant to go on paying them, 
and neither on the one hand to flatter the combers into 
hopes of weakness by an advance, nor on the other to 
reduce them at the dictate of a false economy so long 
as he had money in hand to invest against the coming 
of a better day. 

And for this he was working—working obstinately 
during every moment he could snatch from the usual 
round of business. He would not wait until disquiet 
grew big about the moorside; he grasped the evil now, 
while it was weak, and wrestled with it. Nor was the 
task an easy one; it needed endless patience, never- 
resting tact, and only the fact that he was bone and 
blood of the same race as the skew-tempered folk whom 
he employed, enabled him to get beneath their guard. 
To keep a high hand, and yet to reason with them; to 
carry the matter with the strong man’s wilfulness they 
liked, and yet to avoid the tyranny that touched them 
on the raw—this was the master-weaver’s task; and 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


107 

the difficulty of it roused him, for it was battle of a 
sturdy sort. 

Old Jasper Royd, who had drunk and made merry at 
the Heights so long as there was a guinea to be spent, 
would have laughed in his own boisterous fashion could 
he have seen his son this afternoon as he came riding 
toward the old homestead on his way from Colne. This 
grave, unsmiling man, every line of whose face betrayed 
long self-restraint working to a sure end,—he had been 
a lad when Jasper died, a lad whose heart was eager 
toward the things accounted worthy by the Royds. 
Wherever a hound gave tongue about the moorside, 
or a snipe flashed low to the gunshot, there would old 
Jasper and young Stephen be surely found; and father 
and son had galloped together, good comrades and fast 
friends, to the last inch of tether. That was long ago, 
however; and between then and now there lay a score 
years of quiet slumber on the father’s part, a score years 
of lonely effort on the son’s; and old Jasper, had he 
stood, quick and devil-me-care as on the day he died, 
and watched his son’s face now, and read his thoughts 
of yarn and worsted cloth, of strikes and markets and 
hard bargains—old Jasper might well have asked if 
this were really his lad Stephen, if he were indeed a 
Royd at all. 

Yet he was a Royd to the heart of him, and even as 
he passed the boundary-wall of the Heights land this 
afternoon his bearing changed. It seemed as if a mask 
had fallen from him, and under the hard outline of the 
face a live and glowing passion showed itself. Through 
all the years that had gone since he went out for the 


io8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


last time from the garden-gate below, the sight of the 
old home had never once failed to kindle fire within 
him; whether he saw it dimly from across the valley, 
as on the night when he had talked with Parson Ilor- 
rocks, or whether he checked his horse, as now, within 
touch and smell of the remembered acres, the same 
rush of feeling mastered him. It was the poetry of his 
life, and it had kept ambition wholesome throughout 
the long Ishmaelitish years when he had struggled, his 
hand against every man’s, to build up a fortune from 
his trade. 

To-day the mood was stronger on him than its wont. 
The pastures looked so kindly under the slant rays that 
marked them with straight lanes of light and softest 
shadow; the oats were blading with such cool wealth of 
green farther down toward the valley; and close at 
hand, in the field next the roadway at which he checked 
his horse, a ruddy farm lad was setting seed potatoes 
down the long sandy furrows. It was this last touch, 
usual and homely as it was, that brought the past back 
clear as yesterday to him; for in the year which had 
been marked black by family ruin, and blacker by old 
Jasper’s death, his last bit of husbandry had been 
learned in this same field, which then, as now, had been 
sown for the potato-crop,—and the man remembered, 
with a strange distinctness, how grudgingly the lad 
had taken to his farming lesson until the old farm-hand 
had laughed so at his clumsiness that his pride had 
been touched, and when the day ended he had learned 
to set a furrow with the best. 

All this came back to Stephen Royd, as he sat in the 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


109 


saddle and looked over the stone fence at the farm-boy’s 
work, and with it a hot thrill of protest against the life 
he was shaping for himself. Again he hated the trade 
that made him rich, and loved the land for lack of which 
he felt himself a beggar. Again he heard the horns go 
echoing up the Dene on a winter’s hunting-morn, and 
watched the kine come heavy-uddered to the mistal, 
and rode, with the joiliest father that ever made a com¬ 
rade of a son, to a poacher’s wassail-night, a cock-fight, 
or a harvesting. He had begun life young, and it 
seemed to Royd, as his mind went swinging down the 
past, that all he had ever learned worth the knowing 
had been taught him before he reached sixteen; the rest 
was meaningless, unlovely, and twenty years had been 
cancelled for the moment by the sight of one careless 
farm-lad stooping down the furrows. 

His eyes were resting on the scene before him all 
this while; he saw the long furrows striding over the 
round crest of the field, and the rich-smelling effluent 
of the mistals that lay thick all down the troughs; he 
saw the grey-brown lines of potatoes, and on the nearer 
ones he marked how bravely they were shooting out 
their suckers; he marked the crumbling, wholesome 
brown of the soil which had been thrice ploughed, he 
guessed, to bring it to such kindliness. The farm-dog, 
too, guarding the potato-sacks that lay beside the gate, 
—its face, with the look of extreme and jealous watch¬ 
fulness upon it, might well have belonged to the dog 
which twenty years ago had watched him take his first 
lesson in potato planting; and all the while there was 
the rythmic movement of the farm-lad as he strode 


no 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


down the furrows, stooping at every step to plant his 
root-seed in its place; and all the while there was the 
carol of a lark above, and far off across the moor the 
wail of a marsh-haunting curlew. Song of the lark 
that voiced work’s wholesomeness, and cry of the curlew 
that mourned the weariness of labour—the double note 
struck strangely on Royd’s ear this morning, for they 
were the music to which all his lang-syne life had been 
attuned. 

The farm-lad had done his sowing now, and a second 
yokel had come up the field with a led cart-horse, which 
he was already yoking to the plough. Still Royd tar¬ 
ried, while they drove the plough once up and down 
again by the same route, between the lines of the pota¬ 
toes. There was no detail but came to him with a 
fresh charm, for it was like meeting with a friend whose 
intimacy had been long laid aside by absence. The care 
that was needed to keep the horse from trampling on 
the seed, and the consequent difficulty of guiding the 
plough-blade straight; the fall of earth upon the seed, 
and the little rill that was left down the middle of each 
completed rigg. Men notice little things at such times, 
and by and by Royd smiled as his keen eye followed 
the boys’ movements. 

“ Say, lads, who taught you farming?” he called, 
with instinctive readiness to put a detail of wrong 
practice right. 

The boy who held the plough looked up at the end 
of his furrow and straightened his back slowly, and 
spat upon his hands. “ Nay, I war born to’t,” he said 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


hi 


gravely, and stooped again to the plough as if the mat¬ 
ter were thrashed out in full. 

“ Oh, you were born to it? ” laughed Royd. “ Well, 
listen to me, and you’ll be wiser than you were at day¬ 
break. You are driving as crooked a furrow as ever I 
set eyes on. ,, 

The lad went on with the business of turning round 
the plough, and it seemed he was either deaf or surly, 
until he lifted his head and showed the marks of earnest 
thought on his wide face. 

“ Seems to me, Maister Royd,” he said, “ as ye doan’t 
learn i’ Hazel Miln to plant taties; it’s noan likely, if 
ye come to think on’t.” 

“ No, but I can tell a crooked furrow when I see it— 
and those riggs of yours are as winding as the road to 
Colne.” 

“ Happen you’s like to show me th’ way on’t? ” broke 
in the lad. His face was grave as ever, but a faint 
glitter in his eyes told that he looked to clinch the argu¬ 
ment by this direct appeal. 

For answer Royd swung himself from the saddle, 
tied the bridle to the gate, and crossed to where the 
farm-lads stood and gaped at him. 

Down and up he went, encouraging the lazy farm- 
horse all the while to greater speed; and when he 
stopped at the end of the furrow, the sweat was run¬ 
ning down his face with an exertion to which he had 
been little used of late. It was done as he did every¬ 
thing—quickly, neatly, with the surety of one who 
knows the tool he handles. 


112 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Begow, but ye frame! ” cried the lad. “ If I war 
to plough at that flairsome speed, maister, I’d be dead 
as Parson’s cat come neetfall. So you’ve done part 
farming, like? ” 

Royd was wiping his forehead, and naming himself 
fool to have followed such a whim. He made no 
answer, but turned sharply toward the gate, on the far 
side of which his horse was fretting with impatience; 
and as he did so, he saw two heads above the boundary 
wall—the one close-cropped and shaded by a beaver, 
the other small and shapely, with soft hair gathered up 
beneath a feathered, broad-brimmed hat. And little 
Barbara was smiling with frank enjoyment of a scene 
which showed grave Stephen Royd at play. 

“ A fair day for tilling land, Mr. Royd,” came Ban¬ 
croft’s voice, cool, thin, and full of irony. “ Shall I 
thank you for the work you’ve done for me, or rebuke 
you for a trespass? ” 

“ You may do both, Mr. Bancroft, if it pleases you; 
but at the least your folk will know a little more of 
ploughing than they did.” 

Royd’s glance did not stay long with Bancroft, but 
rested for a moment on little Barbara; and she, soon 
as she caught the glance, grew grave upon the sudden 
and turned away her head. Partly it vexed her that 
Stephen should be found trespassing on the lands of 
such a man as Bancroft, and partly she remembered 
what a night long ago had taught her—remembered 
the sweetness and the shame of it, and the need there 
was to keep at arm’s length her friend of other days. 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


JI 3 


It was the first time they had seen each other since she 
had sung to him in the fragrant Wynyates parlour, 
and she had shrunk from such a meeting. But Royd, 
not knowing this, saw only that she turned from him; 
and he found his own reasons for it. 

Bancroft of the Heights, meanwhile, was making 
the most of his opportunity according to his lights. 
“ My folk will know more of ploughing, will they?” 
he went on in the same tone, while he stroked his 
horse’s ears with the end of his whip. “ It is kind of 
you, Mr. Royd, to give them a much needed lesson; 
for my part, I leave the ploughshare to my hinds—but 
tastes differ, it would seem.” 

“ Yes, I come of an old-fashioned stock,” answered 
Royd, with a quiet mastery of himself that ruffled Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights. “ I was taught that the man who 
leaves his land to take care of itself is apt to find it 
slip away from him.” A flush of disquiet crossed Ban¬ 
croft’s face, but the other did not see it. “ That was 
long ago, however,” he went on, unslipping his bridle 
from the gate and getting to saddle —“ before your 
father, Mr. Bancroft, purchased any land at all, I 
think.” 

Barbara frowned as she bowed a light farewell to 
Royd; she did not care to see him use his adversary’s 
own crude weapons. Bancroft of the Heights, for his 
part, was well content that she had shown herself so 
cold to the mill-master; for he had little doubt of the 
Squire’s answer to his suit, and meanwhile he was 
paying a half-veiled *and assiduous court to Barbara. 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


114 

This morning his wooing was of a speedier sort; and 
Barbara, who had had no inkling until now that he was 
in any sense a lover, drew back instinctively from the 
new tone in his voice and the new boldness in his 
glance. She answered little to his rattle-pated talk, 
and when they reached the foot of Wynyates bridle- 
track, she turned to him— 

“ I will not take you farther out of your road, Mr. 
Bancroft,” she said coldly. 

“ The little wench is coy,” laughed Bancroft to him¬ 
self. “ Your road is mine to-day,” he said, bowing 
with a certain loose-built grace of which he was a 
master, “ and the bridle-track that leads to Wynyates is 
the fairest in the country, so I think.” 

Again Barbara fell into silence as they went up the 
road. She had hoped, by ridding her of Bancroft’s 
company before they reached the gate, to avoid the 
need of offering hospitality; and when they had drawn 
rein and Bancroft eagerly came forward to help her to 
alight, she would not accept his aid, but dismounted at 
the horsing-steps. 

“ You will stay for a glass of wine? ” she murmured, 
standing with the bridle in her hand. 

“ Just for one glass, and for a word with Squire 
Cunliffe,” he said, and smacked his booted leg with high 
good-humour as he followed her indoors and marked 
the lissom beauty of her figure. 

The Squire was coming in by the side-door leading 
from the mistal-yard; the sweat, scanty and beaded, 
was standing on his forehead, and soon as he saw 
Bancroft in the dim light of the passage, he glanced 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


115 

with sudden disquiet at his hands and put them well 
behind his back with the characteristic action which 
puzzled all his friends. 

“ I am glad to see you here, Mr. Bancroft—very glad 
to see you here,” he said, in his stately way. “ You will 
pardon me if I do not offer you my hand,—I—I have 
been working among my chemicals and I should soil 
your glove, I fear.” 

Barbara sighed. Too often, by night and day, the 
Squire had been working in his laboratory since Tim o' 
Tab's came to free him from enforced idleness; and too 
often he returned, as now, with exhaustion and utter 
weariness writ plain upon his face. 

“ Mr. Bancroft will take a glass of wine, father,” she 
said, coming close to him and looking into his face with 
the anxious look—half childish, half motherly—that 
had grown to be second nature to her. “ He met me 
on the road, and was kind enough to bring me 
home.” 

He patted the hand she laid upon his sleeve, and 
Bancroft noticed that he left a slight stain, oily and 
yellowish, upon the girl’s smooth skin. 

“ Mr. Bancroft is very welcome, Barbara. So you 
have enjoyed your ride, child? Well, it is good to see 
the summer in your cheek; but you mustn’t go too far 
from home—the roads are lonely for one unattended.” 

She did not pursue the topic; indeed, she had always 
chafed at the need for having a man-servant ride with 
her, and now that the Squire, for some reason unex¬ 
plained, had lessened the number of his servants by one 
half, it was a relief to her that she must ride alone. 


n6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


The Squire led his visitor into the parlour, and Ban¬ 
croft, turning from a long draught of wine, was vexed 
for the moment to find that Barbara had slipped away. 

“ As you say, sir, the roads are lonely hereabouts. I 
was surprised to find your daughter galloping down by 
Dead Lad’s Rigg,” said the younger man. 

The other bit his lip, and checked his first impulse to 
resent such free-spoken criticism. “ There are but the 
two of us here,” he said after a pause, “ but two of us, 
Mr. Bancroft, and it seemed a folly to keep more serv¬ 
ants about us than we needed.” There was a curious 
shiftlessness about his manner that was almost depre¬ 
cation; but the pride would not be held back for long. 
“ My daughter can ride fearlessly about the moor,” he 
added; “ she is a Cunliffe of Wynyates, sir, and all the 
moorside knows her.” 

“ And all the moorside loves her, Squire,” put in 
Bancroft, changing front. “ Am I any nearer to 
prospering in my suit ? ” 

“ Put it away from you as yet—put it away from 
you,” cried the Squire peevishly. “ You have had my 
answer, sir, that you shall dine with us on the fifteenth 
of the month—my daughter’s birthday—and hear my 
answer.” 

Bancroft’s face darkened, then cleared again. “ So 
be it,” he said. “ A fortnight’s suspense seems years 
to a man far gone in love—but then I’m young, sir, 
and all that is folly to the old.” 

“Folly?” echoed the Squire, searching the other’s 
face. “ True love is never folly—true love—but true 
love is rare, Mr. Bancroft, not to be confounded with 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


117 

any sudden fever of the blood. What, must you go 
already ? ” 

“ I fear so, sir. My lawyer comes to the Heights 
this afternoon, and, being a busy man, he does not like 
to be kept waiting.” 

“ Then farewell, and a good journey to you. It 
would be well, I think—I say it in all kindness—that 
you should see little of my daughter until a fortnight 
hence.” 

The half-rebuke slipped off from Bancroft lightly, 
and he rode down the hill in high spirits. It was the 
Squire’s whim, he thought, to try his patience; it was 
the Squire’s intention, he was certain, to accept his 
suit; and first he thought of Barbara, and hungered for 
her beauty after the manner of his love; and then he 
turned for a look at grey old Wynyates, with its score 
suggestions of opulence and ease. 

“ Worth the winning, both of them,” he said softly. 
“ True, the father is a madman; but ’tis lucky that his 
madness takes the form of parsimony. He thinks 
himself poor, if I mistake not—it is a foible of rich 
dotards, so I’m told—and so he slaves at finding the 
Philosopher’s Stone, and halves the number of his serv¬ 
ants, and grudge Barbara a man-servant to ride with 
her. Damme, he is well employed; if he had taken to 
wine and high living now, instead of saving, I might 
have cried out; as it is, he’s saving all for Barbara— 
and me.” 

His face fell, however, as he neared the Heights, and 
saw a full-fleshed horseman, in a suit of well-brushed 
black, dismounting at his gate. For the sleek stranger, 


n8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


with the big mouth that seemed to be always murmur¬ 
ing “ Give, give,” and the two rows of flesh beneath the 
chin that told of much high-feeding, was no other than 
Lawyer Fairchild of Saxilton, and lie had come to talk 
over a piece of business that was little to his client’s 
liking. 

“ I must marry little Barbara; there’s no help for it, 
he muttered, as he spurred forward to the gate. 

His uneasiness might have been still more marked 
had he guessed how unconsciously yet how clearly 
Royd’s thoughts were bearing at the moment on the 
object of the lawyer’s visit. The mill-master, soon as 
he had left Barbara and her companion at the corner of 
the potato-field, had taken the track that left his mill 
below him on the right; he had a four-mile journey yet 
to make, and all the way his mind was tangled in the 
memories of old days and new. First, he recalled 
Barbara’s averted face, and read in it the death-warrant 
of their old companionship; and then, for the first time 
in his life of gravely ordered effort, a shaft of jealousy 
pierced him unawares. This Bancroft, smooth and 
debonair, who rode with her as if by right—was he 
like to prove a successful rival ? Stephen Royd smiled 
faintly as he thought of Bancroft’s rivalry; but the 
shaft had struck for all that, and the clean wound it 
gave was healthy for such a man as Royd. Heretofore 
he disdained Bancroft of the Heights, accounting him, 
as all the moor-folk did, too slight a man to be con¬ 
sidered gravely; but now it grew plain to him upon the 
sudden that he would begin by and by to hate this 
rough-bred ruffler. 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


119 

He wearied of the topic soon, however, and laughed 
outright at the memory of how not long since he had 
paused in the midst of worsted manufacture to plough 
a furrow. He wondered that the trick of it should have 
lain unforgotten all these years; then he remembered 
why he had been forced as a lad to learn all the ways 
of seed-time and of harvest, of tending kine and sheep¬ 
shearing. Old Jasper Royd had seen disaster coming 
on apace, and almost his last word to his son, before 
that final tragedy, which was to leave him not beggar 
only, but an orphan, had shown the purpose in his mind. 

“ You’ll take a farm, lad, with the little money there’ll 
be left,” he had said; “ and God be thanked that I fitted 
you to turn your hand to honest labour.” 

How carefully the father had planned, Royd thought, 
—he who had planned no other scrap of prudence in 
his life,—and yet how differently the son had chosen. 
To take a farm and to follow it was to live poor for all 
his days; he had needed the stimulus of a great prize 
to keep himself from sinking to the level of a hind, and 
he had found that stimulus in trade—trade, that was to 
win back the Heights for him. With the little money 
over he had bought, not a farm, but knowledge of the 
wool-business, and after that a little mill. The little 
mill was no bigger now than it had been; but every 
year he found more work for labourers outside, and 
every year he proved the wisdom of the step which he 
had taken. He was a rich man at last, and likely to 
be richer by the half before the year was out; he could 
buy back the Heights—if the Heights were only in the 
market. 


120 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


The mill-master lifted his head upon the sudden, and 
opened his wide shoulders. That morning’s halt to 
watch a bit of farm-work forward had kindled the land- 
love in him all afresh; he was awake to the sweetness 
of the wind, the warm compulsion of the sun upon the 
growing crops, the joy of winning meat and bread from 
nature instead of guineas from the greasy lap of trade. 
For years he had been sick to get back to land, but had 
not let the sickness master him; to-day he was ready to 
give up all for land—if he could buy back the Heights. 
He was riding, swift and straight, to clinch a bargain 
at Goit Mill, but the one thought only was in his mind 
—he was rich enough to leave bargaining behind for 
ever. Bancroft had sneered at him a while since; his 
face hardened as he thought of it. 

“ His father ousted mine without pity; and I will oust 
him if my time ever comes,” he muttered. “ I’ll work 
and I’ll watch—and Heaven help fool Bancroft if his 
paper floats into my safe.” 

The whole air of the man was changed as he rode 
into the yard of Goit Mill. He had found love not long 
ago; but the upland folk need more than love—they 
need a touch of rivalry, the sister-passion, to keep their 
outlook wholesome. And Stephen Royd, wrenched 
suddenly—against his will, almost—from the passion¬ 
less life he had been leading, was learning more in these 
spring months than a lifetime of the mills had taught 
him. 

He dismounted in the mill-yard and looked about 
him with a distasteful shrug. In every detail, Goit Mill 
was different from his own. Instead of the trim garden, 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


121 


green with its rows of beans and grey-green where the 
earliest potatoes pushed their spikes above the soil, there 
was an ugly waste of ground, covered thick with docks 
and nettles and refuse of the mill. No fruit-trees re¬ 
deemed the high, bare walls; no beehives caught the 
sunlight on their thatch, suggesting the poetry of toil as 
they murmured in harmony with the spinning-frames 
within and the water-wheel without. The sun itself, 
which formed a hundred points of softness in Hazel 
Mill, could only emphasise the desolation here. It was 
the new type of mill; and Royd, as he looked about him 
in search of Ephraim Booth, its master, could hear 
the voice of the new trade come shrill and clear from 
behind the walls of Goit Mill. Above the thunder of 
the water-wheel, above the rattle of the score-and-three 
spinning-frames, there sounded every now and then 
the protest of the child-labourers against the overlook¬ 
er's lash—a familiar note enough to Stephen Royd, but 
the one which had a new sharpness for his ear this 
morning. 

“ Where is your master ? ” he called, as a lad came 
round the corner of the mill with an armful of yarn. 

“ He’s i’ th’ miln. Ye mud hev knawn as mich by 
th’ screams,” said the youngster, and passed on. 

Royd went in at the door, and looked down the 
length of the bare room. There were none but 
children working here, yet among all the faces 
there was not one which showed any trace of child¬ 
hood. The lass nearest to him was nodding at her 
work, and her hands were moving unconsciously from 
the floor to the box of the spinning-frame, from the 


122 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


frame to the floor, though the pile of wool from which 
she had been feeding the machine was long since ex¬ 
hausted. Sleepy faces, dull and tearstained faces—all 
were here—but not one with any sort of playfulness, 
content, or hope in it. It was plain that these bairns 
had never played; that was the way Royd put it to 
himself as he marked their stunted bodies and weary 
eyes—and it seemed to him the saddest summing-up of 
a child’s life that any man could find. 

He remembered the child whom they had met, he 
and Parson Horrocks, as they rode from Wynyates two 
months ago, and looked about for her, wondering if 
she were still at work; he could not find her though, 
and his eyes fell instead upon Ephraim Booth, the 
master, who stood at the far end of the room with 
his eyes upon every frame at once. By his side was 
the overlooker, and Booth pointed out to him the lass, 
who, close to Royd, was nodding over her work of 
feeding the spinning-frame. The overlooker nodded; 
and as he passed down between the frames, swinging 
his whip as if he loved it, the children cowered and 
shrank like dogs who plead against their punishment. 
He was close beside the culprit now, but she was too 
far spent to notice him until the lash, had twice come 
down upon her shoulders. 

“ I’ll waken thee, begow! I’ll waken thee,” the man 
shouted hoarsely. The phrase had grown to be his. 

An ungovernable fury came on Royd, though he had 
watched many a scene like this and tricked himself into 
denying pity. He clutched the overseer’s arm, and 
wrenched the whip from him, and broke the handle full 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


123 


across his face. Then he picked up his own riding- 
whip, which he had dropped, and fell into a quiet as 
sudden as his passion and waited for the sequel. Be¬ 
fore the overlooker had got the blood out from his 
eyes, however, Ephraim Booth had run down the room 
and stood between them. A type of the new trade, 
Ephraim Booth, and he bore the marks of it as surely 
as his mill-hands did. A wide, red face and a heavy 
jaw; small eyes, a fleshy nose. His children were to 
ride in their carriages one day, but meanwhile he had 
no time to polish himself against their future shame 
of him: rough and sharp as a lump of quartz, he forced 
his way in the world, unhindered by love or hate or 
pity; and money was the sole object of his worship. 

“ This is my miln, Maister Royd,” he said, in a rough 
burr that was neither honest Yorkshire nor honest 
English; “ if ye doan’t like ye can quit it.” 

“ That is so,” Royd agreed; “ but I neither like your 
mill nor am I going to quit it until Eve asked you a 
question or two. Why do you keep this brute with the 
whip? Why do you tempt the moor-folk to drop a 
lump of rock on you some night when you come up 
the Dene? ” 

“ Did ye come to drive a bargain with me, or no ? 
I’ve no time to hearken to fooil’s talk,” snapped the 
other, after a pause of surprise. 

Royd saw on the sudden how useless it was to talk 
of anything but money with such as Ephraim Booth; 
the children would pay the reckoning for his late out¬ 
burst; he had half-blinded a man who had but done his 
master’s bidding; that was all he had gained by his 


124 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


interference. He had meant to say more to this red¬ 
faced man with the small eyes, had meant to cry out 
upon him with generous warmth; but sentiment was 
folly once a man had set his hand to the plough of 
trade, and Stephen Royd laughed bitterly at his own 
want of wit. He was the business man, again, come to 
buy a hundredweight of yarn; and with the shrewdness 
which none of his fellow-masters had fully gauged, he 
knew that Booth expected to make a good bargain with 
him, or he would never have passed over so quietly 
Royd’s treatment of the overlooker. Knowing this, he 
named a price lower by one-tenth than he had purposed. 
Booth declined his offer, bidding him go back to Hazel 
Mill if his pockets were no better lined—then recalling 
him and suggesting they should meet half-way—all in 
the stereotyped, blunt fashion of bartering that was 
familiar to Ling Crag commerce. The bargain clinched 
at last, Booth walked slowly across the yard with his 
customer and looked at him with the red lids lowered 
over his small eyes. 

“ Now th’ brass is addled, we can talk,” he said; “ an’ 
I’ll give ye a word i’ time, Royd o’ Hazel Miln. Ye’re 
ower softly-born and softly-bred for trade.” 

“ Yet I make money time and time,” answered Royd, 
with the immovable face that was said to have earned 
him many a hundred pounds in bargaining. 

“Ye mak brass?” cried the other, thrusting his 
thumbs into his arm-holes and staring impudently at 
Royd. “ I could buy yond little miln five times an’ 
niver miss the price.” 

Royd let the statement stand; it was a foible of his 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


125 


to pass as a man of no account, with no more balance 
at the bank than one half-year’s losses would swallow up. 

“ Ye’ll niver mak brass,” went on Booth, “ so long as 
ye dandle and fuss ower th’ childer as if they wor your 
own. Ye’ll niver mak brass so long as ye get only 
ten hours a day out on ’em while they can do sixteen. 
Ye’ll be poor until ye can look at an overlooker’s whip, 
I tell ye, an’ see the useful side on’t.” 

“ That may be,” said the other, putting his foot into 
the stirrup, “ but my conscience is all the cleaner for 
the money that I miss.” 

He said it from sheer perversity, to draw the retort 
he knew would be forthcoming; for the pleasure, sour 
and taciturn, of tickling the rough hide of such as 
Ephraim Booth was all the humour he could draw 
from such-like meetings. 

“ Conscience? ” echoed Booth, with a profound oath. 
“ I niver heard that conscience would sell for a penny 
piece, so what’s th’ use on’t? I’d liefer see one bale o’ 
wool nor all th’ consciences ’at war iver made. Nay, 
nay, ye’d best get back to th’ land, if ye can afford to 
buy ony. Ye’d best keep company wi’ sich as Bancroft 
o’ th’ Heights, an’ spend brass i’stead of addling it.” 

Royd was in the saddle by this time, but he stayed 
awhile, his keen eyes fixed on Booth, and a half-smile 
upon his lips; nor did the other guess that he was 
providing entertainment of a sort for this customer to 
whom he was “ giving a piece of his mind.” 

“ Times are changing, Mr. Booth,” he said quietly. 
“ We were proud of our birth once on a time, but now 
it seems a man is best without it.” 


126 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Ay, ye talk sense for once. Birth ? There’s no 
brass in’t; it willun’t mak a single yard o’ worsted cloth 
that iver I heard on. It’s rough-handed chaps that’s 
going to be th’ big folk i’ Marsh cotes an’ Ling Crag.” 

“ Lord help us then,” laughed Royd, who had learned 
to meet men with rough weapons or with smooth. 

“ What have ye done, ye gentlefolk ? ” went on the 
other, with growing wrath. “ Your father, now. He 
drank an’ he hunted, an’ his lands went wi’ him. Ban¬ 
croft’s the very marrow of him—hunts an’ drinks, but 
niver turns one bit o’ silver into gold; an’ they say he’s 
well-nigh broken up already wi’ debt. Then there’s 
Squire Cunliffe at Wynyates, as mad as a bog-lanthorn; 
he does reckon to mak brass, if all I hear be true— 
tries to mak it wi’ charcoal an’ chemicals an’ a ha’porth 
of old wives’ miracle-talk.” 

“ He kills no children with work and want of food,” 
put in the other grimly,—“ nor will you ever hear the 
lash swing up at Wynyates.” 

“ More fool him, then—ay, more fool ye—to think 
ye can addle owt without it. It’s all varry weel, Royd 
o’ Hazel Miln, to come here wi’ your smooth hands 
an’ your hatchet face,—they’re all your father left ye, 
begow, save th’ shirt upon your back,—it’s all weel 
enough to come here and play God Almighty when ye 
see a little un touched wi’ th’ whip. It’s fine to show 
all th’ parish that childer needn’t wark no more nor 
ten hours a day. But what does it come to, eh? Ye 
lake at wark, an’ ye’re a poor man to-day; / think o’ 
nowt but wark, day-long an’ neet-long; I doan’t spare 
myseln, an’ I willun’t spare ony that warks for me— 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


127 


an’ if ye doubt tlT rights on’t, ye’ve nobbut to look at 
my brass, an’ that’ll show ye. An’ so I telled yon fine- 
feathered Parson Horrocks, when he came clevering 
here awhile back wi’ his talk o’ milk an’ feeding spoons 
for th’ childer.” 

Royd turned his head toward the mill on the sudden, 
for again the cry of the children had struck, clear and 
sharp, between the rattle of the frames and the roar 
of the wheel. He was quiet for a while, and then he 
looked Booth very straight between the eyes; he had 
logic to give him that touched his pocket. 

<( Have you heard that there’s talk of a strike? ” he 
said slowly. 

“ Summat, ay—but there’ll be no strike. They’ve too 
mich sense to starve, hev th’ combers an’ tli’ spinners.” 

“ They are starving as it is, some of them. Suppose 
there were a strike, Mr. Booth? Would it fare better 
with the master who worked the children ten hours 
a day, think ye, or with the one who worked them 
sixteen, eighteen, twenty hours? ” 

Booth in his turn was silent for a moment. Then, 
“ Th’ wind sits i’ that quarter does it? Well there’ll 
be no strike,—an’ if there be, ye’ll find your folk slip 
away from ye same as mine. They’ll not 'axe whether 
ye’ve treated ’em well—they’ll see a chance o’ laking, 
an’ they’ll tak it. An’ it’s me, not ye, that’ll have 
summat put by for a rainy day. Now, I’m thrang, 
an’ ye’ve wasted ower much good time already.” 

“I have,” assented Royd, and touched his horse’s 
flanks. 

“ Is he deep, or is he a food ? That’s what I want to 


128 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


know,” muttered Booth, as he watched him ride out of 
the mill-yard. “Nay, he’s ower gently born, an’ he 
hes ower little brass, to be owt but a fooil; I niver knew 
one of his fashion that hed his head screwed on face- 
foremost.” 

As for Royd, a measureless distaste was on him— 
distaste for the new days and the new ways that were 
building up a fortune for him. Eager to get back to 
the land he had been as he rode to Goit Mill; the eager¬ 
ness was deepened now, as he rode home again, with 
the cry of the children in his ears. His father, as 
Booth had said, had left him little richer than by the 
shirt upon his back, but he carried the Royd name— 
his father’s name—and it fitted ill with it that he should 
just now have bought a hundredweight of yarn, know¬ 
ing the labour that produced it. The thought was 
fanciful he told himself, but it remained for all that, 
like a blurr upon the smooth surface of his prosperity. 
Royd’s face was impenetrable as ever, and none guessed 
who saw him riding through Ling Crag village—those 
who muttered as he passed, “ There goes th’ hardest 
face i’ th’ moorside, for all its smoothness ”—that the 
mill-master was shaken to the heart. Not for the first 
time had he watched the spinners at their work and 
seen the lash descend, not for the first time had he 
asked himself if all was well; but not till now had he 
found himself powerless to throw off his doubts. Long¬ 
ing for the straight, old-fashioned farming life had set 
the mood in train, had sharpened, too, his sense of 
contrast between the bleak purlieus of Goit Mill and the 
upland fields with wind and sun and freedom on their 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


129 


slopes. He had known no farmer, however grasping 
or uncouth, who could rival the stark heartlessness of 
Ephraim Booth; there seemed to be something in the 
very air of trade that chilled all human sympathy. This 
Booth—he was in no sense a villain. It did not give 
him pleasure to see the children’s backs grow bent, their 
faces red with weals; his pleasure was solely in seeing 
his overlooker get the most work from them that they 
could give, and cruelty would have seemed wrong¬ 
doing to him only if he had been far-sighted enough 
to see that in the long run it would not pay. He could 
not be judged by any usual standard; he was rather 
a machine of wood and steel, turned by the power of 
greed; he referred all issues to the final test of “ brass 
brass was the word most often on his tongue, and his 
belief in it was sincere as other men’s belief in God. 

Slowly Royd pieced the man’s character together— 
pieced it from neglected scraps of observation which 
came back one by one to mind—and he shuddered at 
the picture. Strange it seemed, that Booth himself 
should have advised him, “ Get ye back to th’ land”; 
the advice was good, moreover, for it grew daily clearer 
to Stephen Royd that pride—which stands for con¬ 
science to such as he—is no good comrade to one who 
lives by trade. 

He had reached the dip of Water Lane by this time, 
and his thoughts took a lighter turn as he saw two 
figures standing in the middle of the sunlit road down 
by Smithbank Farm. One was Billy Puff with his 
round body, and round red head; the other Tim o’ 
Tabs; and the master-weaver smiled as he heard Tim’s 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


130 

shrill voice and the constable’s offended air of dignity— 
for it was clear that play was going forward here, of the 
old careless sort, whatever work was being wrung from 
tired bodies at Goit Mill. 

Tim, in fact, was “ trailing ” Billy Puff—an occu¬ 
pation of which he never wearied when sport of other 
kinds was not forthcoming. That they had met in 
Water Lane was to be expected, since both were drawn 
with growing frequency toward the little streamside 
farm where Tabitha Hirst made sport of all her suitors. 
They had reached the stile at the same moment, and 
Billy, mindful of the majesty of law, had hastened to 
thrust his body forward before his rival could push 
through. 

The stile was narrow, however. Billy Puff could at 
no time win through it without great care, and turn¬ 
ing of his body sideways, and squeezing of the upper 
layers of fat against the uprights; and this morning, 
in his haste to steal a march on Tim, he stuck half¬ 
way. Tim and his roguish terrier watched it all com¬ 
placently with faces that never wore so grave a look 
except when frolic was toward. 

“Dost knaw what they are saying i’ Ling Crag?” 
said Tim presently, as the constable tried vainly to 
move back or forward. 

“ Fooilishness for sure. They niver say owt else,” 
answered Billy, with a groan. 

“Well, I knaw nowt about that; but they’re telling 
how Billy Puff went coorting through a stile, i’stead o’ 
round by th’ yett. An’ he like as he stuck there, like a 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


I 3 I 

cork i’ a bottle-neck, while Tim o’ Tab’s louped ower 
th’ wall an’ kissed his lass.” 

Tim set one hand on the wall, as if to prove the 
story true by practice, but he did not vault over it as 
yet, for he wished to get the most fun possible from 
Billy Puff. 

“ I’ll hev the law on ye, as sure as my name’s William 
Reddhiough,” sputtered the constable, with another 
fruitless effort to get free. 

“Nay, doan’t be proud, lad,” murmured the other; 
“ we call thee Billy Puff, tha knaws,—it’s homelier 
like.” 

The terrier, meanwhile, had received a wink from 
Tim, and he began to sniff about the constable’s unpro¬ 
tected calves with a solicitude that was not reassuring. 
Billy Puff disliked all dogs, and the terrier most of 
all her kind; he made redoubled efforts, and tried with 
one eye to look round severely upon Tim while with 
the other he kept an anxious watch upon the terrier. 

“ Call off that dog o’ yourn,” he faltered; “ it’s trea¬ 
son, I tell thee, to set a dog upon an officer of His 
Majesty’s.” 

“ Why, she willun’t mell on thee! She’s that fond, 
begow, o’ th’ smell o’ th’ law, Billy, she niver can get 
done wi’ sniffing. What, ye’re through, are ye? By 
th’ Heart, I thowt ye meant to spend a long day there,” 
he broke off, as the constable, with one last despairing 
effort, wriggled backwards on to the open road. 

Billy Puff recovered his dignity, and with it his 
wondrous power of blowing out his cheeks. “ Tim o’ 


i 3 2 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Tab’s,” he said solemnly, “ if I doan’t catch thee on 
one count, I’ll imprison thee on another—as a rogue 
an’ a vagabond, wi’ no outward an’ visible means o’ 
livelihood. 

“ Catch thyseln on that count, Billy,” retorted the 
other gaily. “ If thy means o’ livelihood is catching 
prisoners, tha niver hes an odd un to show for thyseln.” 

“ I shall hev by and by, an’ his name is Tim o’ Tab’s. 
I hev my trade, an’ all—th’ God-fearing an’ honourable 
trade o’ shoe-mending, as befits one that His Majesty 
pays none too well.” 

“ When dost wark at it, lad ? ” 

“ At th’ proper seasons, wheniver th’ cares o’ peace¬ 
keeping an’ peace-making leave me free for’t,” answered 
Billy, with growing loftiness. “ Go, get thee about thy 
lawful business, Tim—if tha hes ony—an’ leave me to 
mine.” 

Tim glanced toward the stile. “ Kissing Tabitha 
war what I hed i’ mind—is’t lawful, Billy?” he mur¬ 
mured. 

“ It’s agen th’ law,” asserted the constable, with 
conviction. “ I’ve knawn a man suffer all th’ pains 
an’ penalties o’ justice for sich-like wark.” 

“ Well, now, here’s Maister Royd o’ Hazel Miln,” 
cried Tim, glancing up the road, “ happen he’ll settle 
th’ disputation for us.” 

Royd was smiling broadly as he neared them—so 
broadly that Tim o’ Tab’s concluded he had just driven 
a good bargain. For Tim could not guess what a 
welcome contrast the scene presented to the mill-master 
after his late experiences at the mill. 

“ We’re heving a bit of disputation, like, Maister 


THE MASTER OF GOIT MILL 


*33 


Royd,” Tim ventured, standing carelessly across the 
path of Royd’s horse. 

“ Oh, and what is the matter in dispute?” asked 
Royd, drawing rein good-humouredly,—though only 
Tim o’ Tab’s would have ventured to stop Stephen 
Royd in business hours with such an idle plea. 

“ Well, Billy Puff here says it’s noan just lawful to 
kiss a wench, an’ I say different.” 

“ I’m with you, Tim—for if all foolishness were 
against the law, there’d be few men out of prison.” 

“ Spoke like a bench o’ justices, maister,” chuckled 
the rogue. “ It may be fooilish, but it lies a twang 
to’t, there’s no denying. An’ it comes as nat’ral as 
gathering bilberries, i’ a way o’ speaking. Well, it’s 
gooid to be alive to your finger-tips, an’ th’ chap that’s 
as full o’ thankfulness for life as me hes getten nowt 
mich wrang wi’ him.” 

“ No, you’re not ailing, Tim,” said Royd drily, mov¬ 
ing on again; “ for a man who earns his living by 
hard work, you find more leisure than I for one can 
understand.” 

“ It’s all i’ th’ way you measure your day,” said Tim, 
and turned to resume his interrupted banter of the 
constable. “Ye an’ Maister Royd are different as 
chalk fro’ cheese, an’ yet ye’re fearful like i’ one thing, 
Billy,” he murmured. 

“Oh, ay?” said Billy, with slow suspicion. “V 
what way are we like? ” 

“ Ye’d both be twice th’ men ye are if once ye learned 
to tak a wench as a wench likes to be ta’en. Ay, 
’twould do ye both a power o’ gooid.” 


CHAPTER VII 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 

B USINESS was over for the day. Royd had 
groomed and fed his saddle-horses, and now 
he sat in the kitchen of the little two-roomed 
building that abutted on the mill, and ate the sup¬ 
per for which a long day in the open had given him 
appetite enough, but little zest. The day’s round, save 
for that droll meeting with Bancroft at the corner of 
his own potato-field, had been as usual; the lonely 
supper was such as he had gone through six nights 
out of the seven any time these years past. A woman 
came from the neighbouring farm each morning to 
put his house in order; for the rest he cooked what 
meals were needful, welcomed little company, and lived 
as methodically, as tirelessly, as the water-wheel that 
in the daytime shook his house from roof to floor. He 
did not seek for pleasure in life, scarcely for content; 
but he found at most times a sufficient substitute for 
both in a certain dogged sense that he was struggling 
against circumstance, and winning. 

To-night, however, the black mood was on him that 
came with persistent regularity to claim the penalty 
of lonely living. The scene at Goit Mill had set the 
mood in train; two hours of uncompanioned musing 
134 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


*35 


had deepened it, till now there seemed no sap in life, 
not any goodness in the years of stubborn work. Little 
by little, as he sat there, he pieced together the life of 
his poorer moorland neighbours, and saw it whole and, 
wondered at the contrast that it offered—of gaiety and 
deepest gloom. His business had taken him into the 
heart of that life, among the weavers, the combers and 
the spinners; he had brought a keen eye, and a keen, 
well-balanced mind, to the understanding of it; and he 
realised—what few of his own generation seemed fully 
to grasp—how hot a time of change it was, how desper¬ 
ately the old order held its own, while the hard new 
times were striving to push it to the wall. On the one 
hand were the workmen of the old type—poor men, 
who yet were rich in their freedom to work where they 
would and when they would, who had land about their 
cottages and could grow their own oats for meal, their 
own potatoes; who could keep a cow or two, a half- 
dozen pigs, a flock of geese, it may be; who, when 
times were hard in the wage-market, could show them¬ 
selves well able to get food and drink each from his 
own little centre of production. These were the happy 
folk; they laboured less than they might have done, and 
played more often than was needful, and lived day¬ 
long with sun and wind and sky about them. On the 
other hand there were the children, the women, and 
the men who had been drawn into the foul life of the 
factories; light and air were shut out from their lives, 
and their lot, as Royd well knew, was rarely less than 
misery and often more than degradation. Nor were 
the children in the worst case; their minds were merci- 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


138 

feared to send his daughter to tend the spinning-frames 
of Stephen Royd; but there were two factories at least 
within the borders of Ling Crag and Marshcotes which 
could not claim as much; and the better sort, while 
hampered in their restrictions of age and hours of 
labour by the rivalry of the few, could not hold aloof 
from dealing with such as Ephraim Booth. 

It was no safe way of thought for a master-weaver, 
this; and Royd, moved to a sudden impulse of resisr- 
ance, opened the house-door and went up the trough 
of Hazel Dene. He would cross to Marshcotes, he 
told himself, for a long-neglected chat with Parson 
Horrocks; the Parson had always had a sane and 
cheery comradeship to offer him; nay, he had done 
much to mould his boyhood and his manhood, and he 
knew, as no other did beyond himself, how hardly 
trade was apt to bear on him at times. The night was 
fair, with moonlight on the stream and on the sleepy 
dams; and the rough fields through which he passed 
to gain the hilltop—the same up which Barbara had 
gone not long since to carry Parson Horrocks a basket¬ 
ful of eggs—were smoothed and softened to a pearly 
grey. Here and there the hares were cropping, by 
twos and threes, and a sudden pitiful cry, with a human 
note in it, told that somewhere near at hand a net was 
laid at a field-corner. It was the corner, as it chanced, 
where the sheep-stile took Royd into the last of the hill¬ 
top fields, and as he climbed the stile he saw a well- 
known figure crouching to the wall and disentangling 
a hare from out the meshes of the net. 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


*39 


“ Begow, it’s weel it’s nobbut ye, Maister Royd!” 
cried Tim, soon as he had recovered from his surprise. 
For wayfarers were rare up here, and Royd’s footsteps 
had been deadened by the grass. 

“ At the old game, Tim?” laughed Royd. “ Well, 
we learned the way of it together, with Lavrock for our 
guide, and all Wyecollar Dene to hunt.” 

“ I reckon we did! ” cried the other, tapping the hare 
across the neck and quieting its cries. “ An’ weel ye 
framed at it; I’ve wished mony a time ye hedn’t grown 
so sober-like.” 

“ And so have I,” Royd answered, with a frankness 
that surprised his old-time comrade. “ But what would 
you, Tim? At my age one needs to look to something 
else than poaching for a living.” 

“ Ay, mebbe—but it’s fine an’ free, for all that. I 
alius did say a hare, sitting i’ benty grass by moonlight, 
war th’ bonniest sight i’ Christendom—better nor th’ 
sight o’ fleeces an’ combing-pots,” he added, glancing 
slily at the other. 

“ I’m still puzzled to know how you manage both so 
well,” said Royd, after a pause. He was leaning 
against the wall now, glad of the moolit warmth, glad 
of the scent of green spring leafage and the forgetful¬ 
ness of care it brought. 

“ So is all th’ parish,” chuckled Tim, “ though it’s as 
plain as eating taties once ye knaw, as I said to ye 
awhile back i’ Water Lane, it’s all i’ th’ way ye measure 
out th’ four-an’-twenty hours. I’m i’ bed, we’ll say, by 
four i’ th’ morning, an’ astir by eight; an’ what’s to 


140 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


hinder me fro’ combing right on to fall o’ dusk? Nay, 
it’s a grand way o’ life; wark’s noan healthy by itseln, 
without some mak o’ poaching sauce to flavour it.” 

There was a note of raillery in Tim’s voice, a sugges¬ 
tion that there was more of jest than sober truth in this 
description of his working-day; yet he did the work, as 
Royd knew, and ever since his escapade with Lavrock 
at the Herders Inn he had been punctual as the sun 
itself. 

“ I can judge most men,” said Royd slowly, “ but I 
never yet could reckon you up, Tim, for all the years 
I’ve known you.” 

“ I’m ower simple, that’s where it is,” Tim ventured 
soberly; “ I’m that innocent like, a child could tak me 
in.” 

Again Royd laughed light-heartedly. “ That’s as 
may be. Do you mind the talk we had not long ago 
at Hazel Mill?” 

“ Ay, I mind—about th’ strike that’s threatening? ” 

Royd nodded. 

“ Well, they’re getting uneasy, more so ivery day, is 
th’ combers; wheniver a chap comes up fro’ Bradforth- 
way, an’ tells ’em what’s agate down yonder, they like 
as they willun’t be behindhand if there’s ony grumbling 
to be done. But I’m doing my best, Maister Royd; 
they’ve alius gi’en me credit for a bit o’ sense—that 
shows they’re foods to start wi’—an’ when I tell ’em 
ye’re worth all th’ masters i’ Bradforth, an’ that they’re 
fratching wi’ their bread-and-butter if they fratch wi’ 
ye, they oppen their mouths and gape; an’ at after 
they’ve done gaping, they say there mud be summat 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


141 

in’t; but, bless ye, th’ next time I put my head inside 
a combing-shop, there’s all the owd talk going on again 
as hard as iver.” 

“ It may end in talk, even yet, Tim.” 

“ Ay, it may. We’ll hope so. Happen ye’d like a 
hare or so ? ” he broke off, pointing to the spoil that lay 
at his feet. 

“ Tim, you scoundrel, do you want to tar me with 
the same brush ? ” laughed Royd, as he moved off up 
the slope. 

“ That’s what th’ Parson alius says,” went on the 
other imperturbably,—“ but the game seems to find its 
way into his kitchen for all that. Well, we willun’t 
say no more about it, maister. If ye find a hare on 
th’ doorstun when you get home to-neet—why, I 
reckon it’ll hev come there by itseln.” 

It was a peculiarity of Ling Crag hares and grouse, 
this fondness for creeping to the thresholds of houses 
belonging to Tim’s friends—creeping there to die, so 
it seemed, for they were always stone-cold when day¬ 
light strode across the dark moor-ridges and found 
them there. 

“ Says he cannot reckon me up, does th’ maister ? ” 
murmured Tim o’ Tab’s as he folded his net and put 
it in an inner pocket. “ I could hev said th’ same to 
him, an’ not been far fro’ th’ truth. What’s agate wi’ 
him to-neet? He seemed fain as a lad to see a bit o’ 
sport again, an’ he laughed wi’ his belly, as if he 
meant it, like; yet to-morn, sure as iver I go to th’ miln 
for wool, there’ll be th’ owd mask pulled ower his 
face, an’ his mouth ’ull be shut as tight as a ratten- 


140 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


hinder me fro’ combing right on to fall o’ dusk? Nay, 
it’s a grand way o’ life; wark’s noan healthy by itseln, 
without some mak o’ poaching sauce to flavour it.” 

There was a note of raillery in Tim’s voice, a sugges¬ 
tion that there was more of jest than sober truth in this 
description of his working-day; yet he did the work, as 
Royd knew, and ever since his escapade with Lavrock 
at the Herders Inn he had been punctual as the sun 
itself. 

“ I can judge most men,” said Royd slowly, “ but I 
never yet could reckon you up, Tim, for all the years 
I’ve known you.” 

“ I’m ower simple, that’s where it is,” Tim ventured 
soberly; “ I’m that innocent like, a child could tak me 
in.” 

Again Royd laughed light-heartedly. “ That’s as 
may be. Do you mind the talk we had not long ago 
at Hazel Mill?” 

“Ay, I mind—about th’ strike that’s threatening?” 

Royd nodded. 

“ Well, they’re getting uneasy, more so ivery day, is 
th’ combers; wheniver a chap comes up fro’ Bradforth- 
way, an’ tells ’em what’s agate down yonder, they like 
as they willun’t be behindhand if there’s ony grumbling 
to be done. But I’m doing my best, Maister Royd; 
they’ve alius gi’en me credit for a bit o’ sense—that 
shows they’re foods to start wi’—an’ when I tell ’em 
ye’re worth all th’ masters i’ Bradforth, an’ that they’re 
fratching wi’ their bread-and-butter if they fratch wi’ 
ye, they oppen their mouths and gape; an’ at after 
they’ve done gaping, they say there mud be summat 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


141 

inT; but, bless ye, tlT next time I put my head inside 
a combing-shop, there’s all the owd talk going on again 
as hard as iver.” 

“ It may end in talk, even yet, Tim.” 

“ Ay, it may. We’ll hope so. Happen ye’d like a 
hare or so? ” he broke off, pointing to the spoil that lay 
at his feet. 

“ Tim, you scoundrel, do you want to tar me with 
the same brush ? ” laughed Royd, as he moved off up 
the slope. 

“ That’s what th’ Parson alius says,” went on the 
other imperturbably,—“ but the game seems to find its 
way into his kitchen for all that. Well, we willun’t 
say no more about it, maister. If ye find a hare on 
th’ doorstun when you get home to-neet—why, I 
reckon it’ll hev come there by itseln.” 

It was a peculiarity of Ling Crag hares and grouse, 
this fondness for creeping to the thresholds of houses 
belonging to Tim’s friends—creeping there to die, so 
it seemed, for they were always stone-cold when day¬ 
light strode across the dark moor-ridges and found 
them there. 

“ Says he cannot reckon me up, does th’ maister? ” 
murmured Tim o’ Tab’s as he folded his net and put 
it in an inner pocket. “ I could hev said th’ same to 
him, an’ not been far fro’ th’ truth. What’s agate wi’ 
him to-neet? He seemed fain as a lad to see a bit o’ 
sport again, an’ he laughed wi’ his belly, as if he 
meant it, like; yet to-morn, sure as iver I go to th’ miln 
for wool, there’ll be th’ owd mask pulled ower his 
face, an’ his mouth ’ull be shut as tight as a ratten- 


142 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


trap. Well he finds me queer, just as I find him, so I 
munnot complain. Happen he’s getten a man’s happi¬ 
ness, an’ a man’s pride, to see to, same as I hev.” His 
unpatched eye dwelt lingeringly upon the further hump 
of moor that hid the house of Wynyates from his sight. 
“ Poor Squire! Ye’d better hev been born i’ a littlish 
farmstead, same as me; there’s less pride in’t, an’ less 
wark to keep your head held high.” 

Tim o’ Tab’s was counted the least serious man in 
all the parish; yet these benty moonlit fields—his 
staunchest friends and only confidants—could have 
told a different tale. So still he was to-night, indeed, 
that a hare came lop-lopping across the grass to within 
a score yards of him, and stayed there, feeding tran¬ 
quilly, while Tim let his thoughts go wool-gathering 
out to Wynyates, and back again to the farm in the 
grassy hollow where Tabitha Hirst had dwelling. His 
thoughts were deep indeed, or they would never have 
blinded him to the nearness of fur or feather; and they 
were concerned with the question which not long since 
he had asked little Barbara in Smithbank Lane. Bar¬ 
bara had suspected him of jesting when he asked if 
wedlock were permissible to a man who held another’s 
secret; but the scruple was sincere, and it had cost Tim 
the ne’er-do-weel many an hour of troubled speculation. 
For an unwedded man, Tim knew more of women 
than he had a right to; the favourite of all, with an 
eye for opportunity which his poaching life had quick¬ 
ened, he had learned many a lesson from the moorside 
lasses,—and the lesson he had learned most thoroughly, 
so he always said, was to measure the length of a long 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


*43 


tongue. Perhaps his love for Tabitha, which was 
growing faster than he guessed, had sharpened his 
sense of duty to the Squire; perhaps, as he looked 
across the hills to-night, he remembered how in his 
childhood Squire Cunliffe had found him lost in a snow¬ 
drift over yonder, how he had carried him, all but dead, 
to Wynyates and had brought back the life to him; 
perhaps, too, he recalled all the Squire’s after-kindness, 
—that rare, unselfish tenderness that a man feels to¬ 
ward a fellow-being whom he has saved from death, 
—or it may be his knowledge of a stranger and a newer 
bond between them made him swear softly to himself, 
here where the world was quiet and the moonlight 
lay upon the ben'ts, that he would never, for any 
woman’s sake, endanger the Squire’s secret. For once 
in his life Tim did not see the humorous side of the 
matter, nor guess how the motive of his sacrifice would 
have moved his world to laughter; he was young to 
self-denial as yet, and he hugged it with a fine fever of 
resolve that lasted till the moon was dipping west¬ 
ward. He stirred then from his position at the stile, 
and glanced behind him, and found a very human sequel 
to his musings. 

“ Tabitha ’ll be sleeping,” he murmured, turning 
down toward the valley. “ She’ll be fast i’ sleep as a 
butter-cup, will th’ lass, an’ what’s to hinder me fro’ 
snatching a peep at her chamber-window ? ” 

Royd, meanwhile, had reached the Parsonage, and 
Parson Horrocks himself had opened the door to him. 

“ Why, ’tis Stephen! Come in, lad, and be sure of 
a warm welcome!” cried the Parson cheerily. 


H4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ It is late for a visit, eh? ” cried Royd, as he followed 
his host into the snug parlour; “ but the night was 
tempting, sir, and the clock pointed to no later than 
eight when I set off.” 

“ Then you walked more slowly than I did at your 
years. What! ’Tis nine now. Confess, lad—you’ve 
been taking counsel of the spring about some maid or 
other.” This with a side-glance of kindly shrewdness. 
“ You’ll say, of course, your thoughts were all of noils 
and tops and worsted yarn, and I, of course, shall not 
believe you.” 

“ The spring does not find me worth that sort of 
counsel, I’m afraid. If you must have the truth, Par¬ 
son, I met Tim o’ Tab’s in the Dene fields, and stayed 
for a crack with him.” 

“ Ah, was he poaching? Yes, I thought as much. 
’Tis a sad rascal, Stephen.” His eyes were twinkling 
as he brought a second chair up to the table, which 
was already laid for supper. “ You’re just in time, 
lad, for I have had a long ride across the moors to see 
a sick parishioner, and have only just returned. What 
have we here? Why, a hare, as I live,” he broke off, 
lifting a cover from the dish at the head of the table. 

Royd understood then why his host’s face was full of 
such sly merriment. “ Tim is indeed a sad rascal, sir,” 
he put in, “ I wonder you should let his hares be seen 
upon a godly table.” 

“ Well, well, I know nothing of such matters. Par¬ 
sons are poor, as all the world knows, and if kindly folk 
leave gifts by night, and modestly withdraw from 
thanks—why, ’tis discourteous to inquire over closely. 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


*45 

And are times good with you, Stephen? Do the 
Heights lands come any nearer ? Come, you are play¬ 
ing with your food; I never did that at your age, 
never.” 

“ I supped so very lately, sir. Yes, times are good, 
so far as money goes. There’s enough now to buy 
back the Heights, leaving something over with which 
to meet the future. But where is the use? ” 

“ Use enough, I should have thought, to one who 
had learned to wait as you have learned.” 

“ I am growing tired of waiting,” said Royd slowly. 
“ It came to me only to-day how tired I was, when I 
was passing Bancroft’s lands, and stopped to smell the 
good reek of the furrows I used to know. Bancroft 
caught me in the trespass, as it chanced.” 

“ And made the most of it, I warrant. I often won¬ 
der, Stephen, if he’ll end by forcing you to hate him. 
’Twould be a pity, that, for he’s not worth an honest 
hatred.” 

“ So I was thinking, as I rode down the hill this 
morning after seeing him. Yet hatreds have been 
come to for less cause,—he holds my lands, sir, 
and he will never give me the chance to buy them 
back.” 

“ Never is a long while, lad, and the man who says 
never is less full of wit than I think Stephen Royd to 
be. The land will come to you, if only you can wait.” 

“ Then, too, there is the question of the strike. For¬ 
tunes will be won and lost, Parson, before we have 
seen the end of this year’s discontent.” 

The Parson was silent for a while. He, too, had 


146 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


passed a heavy hour this evening, as he rode home 
across the moor; his mind, like Royd’s, had been dwell¬ 
ing on the under-life of trade, and his cheerful front 
to-night was due only to his eagerness to keep Royd 
from a line of thought which he knew had troubled him 
often in the past. 

“ Strikes? ” he cried, unable longer to keep silence. 
“ I marvel that we have not strikes at every month’s 
end. See, Stephen, I have passed threescore, and it is 
hard to be brought face to face with a still darker side 
of life than I had guessed at. They are too proud, 
these folk of mine, to tell me what their children suf¬ 
fered; there was no need for me, I thought, to go and 
see for myself what went on within the mills. It was 
all hearsay to me—rumour scarce credited—until that 
February night when we rode home from Wynyates 
together. Do you remember, Stephen, the child who 
swayed and stumbled up the road before us? ” 

“ Yes, I remember; I was at Goit Mill this very 
afternoon, and looked for the child, but I could not 
see her there.” 

“ She has been ailing—like to die, she was, at one 
time—but the mother tells me she will be about again 
in a week or so; Booth of the mill has not killed her 
yet, it seems.” 

“ You went to Goit Mill not long since? I heard as 
much to-day.” 

“ Could I do less, lad ? I had kept away too long, 
through not crediting the tales I heard of it. But it 
was useless; Booth, I believe, when I went in among 
the spinning-frames determined to excel himself in 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


*47 


cruelty; at any rate, I hope to God that what I saw 
there was no usual sight.” 

Royd, if he looked for a different mood from Parson 
Horrocks—a mood that should soothe his own sense 
of difficulty—was braced by the very challenge which 
a while since, coming from himself, had set his doubts 
in train. 

“ It was a usual sight, sir. What then ? I decline to 
accept responsibility for such as Ephraim Booth,” he 
answered doggedly. 

“ Of course you refuse, lad,” cried the other, with a 
quick glance of surprise. “ None but a fool would 
saddle you with such responsibility. There! you must 
let an old man talk. It is so new to me, all this, and 
the cry of the children is spoiling the sunshine and the 
spring for me, lad Stephen.” 

The younger man began to realise how deep the 
Parson’s wound was, and instinctively his voice soft¬ 
ened. “ It is a time of change, sir, and times will be 
worse before we reach the good that is sure to come 
from them. Booth and his generation will go by— 
but machinery will remain, and none knows yet how 
near the world will come to a second Golden Age.” 

“ We’ve left that behind us, twenty years ago,” mut¬ 
tered the Parson, filling his glass afresh. 

“ No, sir, and no again! We shall see the combing- 
machine and the power-loom perfected, as well as the 
spinning-frame. We shall manufacture cloth with fifty 
times the speed, and a fiftieth of the labour that it costs 
to-day. Men will have leisure to live, after their short 
day’s work is done.” 


148 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Yet the hours increase already. It is the old tale, 
Stephen, the more we have the more we shall want. 
The rich will learn new ways of extravagance, and the 
poor will not be content with simple needs.” 

Royd argued, steadily, closely, with an outlook on 
the future that was oddly compact of idealism and 
clearsightedness. He was another man altogether since 
leaving Hazel Mill behind him; his despondency was 
gone; he was swung for the moment into that extreme 
belief in the future of his trade which opposition more 
than once had roused in him. There was a fine light 
in his eyes, a crisp ring in his voice, which now and 
then had gone near to carry the Parson’s rooted con¬ 
servatism by storm. But not to-night; Parson Hor- 
rocks stood too close to present realities yet,—and he 
had reached the age, moreover, when men look back 
upon the lessons of experience, and doubt any future 
whose happiness depends upon wry human nature. 

“ The new era has begun,” he said, by way of sum¬ 
ming up their talk,—“ has begun with pauper-labour, 
that removes at one stroke the dignity of thrifty toil. 
The new era is scarce in its teens yet, Stephen—yet it 
has bred hunchbacks and weaklings already among our 
children.” 

“ They are the martyrs, sir. Every upward move¬ 
ment has been built on some such martyrdom,” said 
Royd, pushing back his chair. 

“You are not going, lad?” cried the Parson, with 
something of his old manner. “ Why, then, Eve 
wearied you, and I must promise to talk of brighter 
things—of the maid, say, who kept you so deep in 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


149 


thought that it took you an hour to cross from Hazel 
Mill.” 

“ The maid, if it was a maid detained me, carried a 
net and wore one eye patched,” laughed the other. 
“ No, I must be going, Parson, it is after ten, and I 
have to be up by five to-morrow.” 

“ Bless me! I’ll never deny that you work, Stephen. 
Well then, if you must go—but at the least you’ll 
promise to come soon again ? ” 

He walked to the gate with his guest, and they stood 
awhile looking over the starlit burial-ground that hid 
so many storm-tossed wayfarers. Each fell into his 
own train of thought; and when at last Parson Hor- 
rocks broke the silence, it was but to re-open the old 
question. 

“ Stephen,” he said, “ I am not so young as I once 
was; I cannot shake off my burdens as I could, and I 
am apt, I know, to harp on the one sad string. I cannot 
rid me of the thought of the master of Goit Mill, with 
his gospel of ‘ brass, brass,’ and his children whom he 
feeds with the self-same food he gives his pigs. There 
was misery enough in Marshcotes, lad, as I knew it 
five-and-thirty years ago—but it was straightforward, 
human misery, and there was always a chance of sun¬ 
shine between the clouds. We are changing that; folk 
have no leisure for healthy hates and loves—there’s 
poverty sits on the threshold, and men and women must 
do anything for money.” 

“ Life is a tangle, Parson; it is well to have such 
faith in an after-life as yours,” said Royd. 

The words slipped from him; he scarcely knew that 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


150 

he had uttered them; they were not the outcome of his 
late enthusiasm, nor yet altogether of the black mood 
that had gone before,—rather they summed up a score 
of contrary emotions which once, in the days before 
little Barbara had grown to womanhood, had passed 
him by. 

The Parson sighed as he looked across the graveyard 
and thought of how, upon that bitter February night, 
he had stood here, torn with pity for a child’s fate, and 
had asked himself if God were sleeping. 

“ Faith has its doubts, lad,” he murmured,— 
“ though we must not let the quiet sleepers yonder 
hear us. There are those in Marshcotes here, Stephen, 
who do the worst for this world and the next;” the 
old man fell into silence once again; then roused him¬ 
self, as if to throw off a distasteful topic. 

“ Stephen,” he said, searching Stephen’s face by the 
light of the waning moon, “ if you can afford to buy 
up Bancroft and his acres, you can afford to marry. 
Faith lies that way for such as you.” 

“ True,” said the other, with a hard laugh; “ but 
where’s the maid would have me, sir? I’m grown too 
old, and my groove is wearing deep already.” 

“ The more reason you should be plucked out of it, 
lad; women will have none of grooves, and a wife 
would make a new man of you within the year.” 

Royd looked across the graveyard, and back at the 
old Parson; and a little-wonted confidence moved him. 

“ Parson,” he said slowly, “ I did not keep my secrets 
from you in the old days.” 

“ Nor would do now, if I had any say over you.” 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 


151 

“ How if I told you I would never marry, because 
there’s only one woman I could think of as a wife ? ” 

The Parson rubbed his hands together softly; he had 
not expected such frank confession. “ Bless me, that is 
a strange reason! ” he murmured. “If there were a 
dozen maids you could think of so, lad, why, it would 
be difficult to choose. But one—” 

“ Ay, but the one is gently born and gently bred, and 
she does not like the smell of wool.” 

“ Lad! I despair of you. It’s not that you’re a fool 
at bottom, and that makes folly sinful in you. D’ye 
think a woman cares what else a man does so long as 
he can make her love him? D’ye think they stop to 
weigh pence and half-pence, like you niggard trading- 
folk? Stephen, Stephen, you have made little use of 
your five-and-thirty years. Little Barbara is wiser at 
eighteen than you.” 

Spite of himself, there was an eagerness in Stephen’s 
voice. 

“ Barbara ? ” he echoed. “ So you know my secret, 
Parson? ” 

“ I had seen you with her, Stephen, and my eyes are 
not so dim yet as they will be by and by.” 

“ Have you seen how she begins to turn from me? ” 
he broke in, with another sudden change of voice. 
“ Have you seen how she shuns Hazel Mill, and how 
she almost fears to say good-morrow when she meets 
me in the road ? ” 

Again the Parson chuckled. “ I have seen, lad, and 
it has gladdened me. Nay, I’ll not tell thee why. Only, 
’tis sad that young men know so little of young maids.” 


152 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Each seemed loth to say good-night; and each stayed 
halting at the Parsonage gate, with that strange quiet 
of the kirkyard stealing over them—the quiet of dead 
men who sleep against the coming of the Judgment 
Day, the quiet which, for depth and restfulness, is like 
no other stillness upon earth. Even the stars were 
shrouded now, as if heaven had turned down its myriad 
lamps and was watching in the hush of mourner’s dark 
above the dead. A sparrow fluttered in the ivied 
church-tower, and was still again; a night-hawk 
screamed once from the moor above as it glanced down 
to strike; and then the silence crept on padded feet once 
more, and only the wind among the gravestones made 
complaint. Royd remembered afterwards the least de¬ 
tail of the scene—for this was to prove for him the still 
hour that goes before the dawn of hope. 

“ I, too, have had my secrets from you,” said the 
Parson very softly. “ I, too, have known love, Stephen 
—nay, it is long ago, and the sting has all gone by; but 
I would not see another stumble on as blindly as I have 
done. Look ye, lad, quit money-making for awhile, 
and look about you and see if there be any meaning 
in the spring; and you’ll win more than the Heights 
lands—you’ll win a mistress for them, Stephen.” 

“ One could believe anything to-night, with you for 
counsellor. Yet, it’s an All-Fool’s chase, when all is 
said.” 

“ How is it, lad, that you alone are blind to what is 
the common gossip of the moorside? No man in 
Marshcotes would give a rush for Bancroft’s chances 


MOONLIGHT ON THE BENTS 153 

of remaining at the Heights a year. Yet you will not 
credit it.” 

“ I long for it too much,” cried Royd impetuously. 
“ I will not believe it, sir, until I have sure proof.” 

“ I have heard, for all that, that hope is almost as 
helpful a comrade as certainty. However, go your 
way, lad—and come to me to hear me say ‘ I told you 
so ’ when the Heights lands come back to you.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


ON THE THRESHOLD 

R OYD left the Parson, as he had left him times 
and again in the old days of struggle, with 
new-found hope, new readiness to acknowl¬ 
edge that his groove was not worn so deep after all 
but he might yet escape from it. He let his thoughts 
run where they would, with a liberty denied them here¬ 
tofore; he saw the long low house upon the hill that 
had been the goal of every enterprise, the prize of every 
hardship; he saw little Barbara there, singing to him 
in the summer-dusk after he had come in from a long 
day in the saddle; he understood the tenderness, the 
strength, the sweet and reasonable glory of that love 
which is the crown of life; he heard the patter of young 
feet upon the creaking oaken stair, and looked across 
at Barbara as she sang, and saw the love-light and the 
mother-light grow dreamy in her eyes. Never in his 
life had Stephen Royd known such an hour as this; 
never had he ridden by the waterway of Hazel Dene 
and dismounted at his door with such deep impulses 
at work in him. For his love was a man’s, in that it 
had strength to see realities and welcome them; it was 
a boy’s in that it was his first, and thrall to all dulcet 
whispers of the spring. 


154 


ON THE THRESHOLD 


155 


Yet after he had gone in at the house-door and seated 
himself beside the fireless hearth, his new mood weak¬ 
ened. Association was too strong for him. It was 
here, in the little two-roomed house that he had fought 
the long fight; here that he had lived—he, a Royd of 
the Heights—with no more outward show than any 
labourer of his own could compass; here that he had 
scraped and saved, and pondered on investments, and 
made the most of every penny that hard work had 
brought him. And now he was back amidst it all, and 
his dreams of a moment since, fired by an old parson’s 
hopefulness, receded as the dew gives back before a 
scorching sun. This was his life, must always be his 
life; he felt its shackles round him; it seemed hopeless 
he should ever free himself. Quick to hope he had been 
to-night, contrary to his usual habit; and, contrary to 
his usual habit, he was quick to swing into extreme 
despondency. That picture he had drawn of the long 
low house upon the hill—what child’s play it was. 
Barbara, if she sought a home, would take it from other 
hands than his. He knew how to handle guineas, 
and how to woo fortune roughly in the open market; 
but the years had not taught him any other sort of woo¬ 
ing, and he could find no quality in himself that should 
stir a maid’s fancy by one single pulse-beat. Bancroft, 
moreover, would never let him own the Heights; and 
that was his only chance of getting back to land, for 
live elsewhere he could and would not. 

Late as the night was, there was a guest riding up 
toward Hazel Mill who was to put such thoughts be¬ 
hind the master of Hazel Mill for many a day—a guest 


i S 6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


who was in all respects the opposite of Stephen Royd. 
Lawyer Fairchild, indeed, as he came up the Dene and 
sniffed the freshness of the warm spring night, did not 
look like a man who harboured sentiment or doubts of 
any kind, except as to a client’s solvency. He stopped 
awhile, before he drew rein at the door, to look on what 
the dim light showed him of the house, and a faint and 
soothing purr of satisfaction came from his thick 
throat, with its double layers of pink flesh beneath the 
chin. 

“ You are hoodwinking the whole countryside, 
Stephen Royd,” he murmured. “ They see you living 
hand-to-mouth in a two-roomed hovel, and they say 
you’re not worth much more than the clothes you stand 
up in. I could tell them another tale—if I had the in¬ 
discretion.” 

The secret would have been out, however, if any of 
the Marshcotes folk had witnessed Lawyer Fairchild’s 
greeting to his host; for there were few men who could 
temper obsequious warmth to so nice a calculation of a 
man’s fortune. 

“ I rode to see Mr. Bancroft of the Heights on busi¬ 
ness, and dined with him,” explained the lawyer, glanc¬ 
ing round the bare walls that always moved him to 
fresh admiration of his client’s shrewdness; “ and as I 
was so near to you, I thought I would call in passing 
and share a friendly glass.” 

Royd was already setting glasses on the table, though 
he rarely drank wine except when hospitality demanded 
it. 


ON THE THRESHOLD 


x 57 

“ You come in a good hour, ,, he said, “ and that for 
two reasons, Mr. Fairchild.” 

“ Then am I doubly welcome, eh? Your reasons, 
sir, first and second ? ” 

“ First, because thought is an ill wife to a man; 
second, because I have some money lying idle, and I 
want a good investment.” 

“ The coincidence is odd—it is most marked,” said 
the lawyer, rubbing his riding-breeches with both hands 
as he leaned forward in his chair. 

Royd looked in question at his guest. 

“ Why, because the business that took me to the 
Heights this afternoon is all in favour of a good in¬ 
vestment. Do you care for land, Mr. Royd? Or do 
you seek some other way of using your spare capital ? ” 

Royd started forward in his chair, then fell back 
again with instinctive sense that he must not show 
himself too eager; yet his voice was husky a little as 
he responded, for he recalled what Parson Horrocks 
had lately told him touching the moorside gossip about 
Bancroft. 

“ Do you mean that—that the Heights—” 

“ Is to be mortgaged. Precisely. Does it surprise 
you, Mr. Royd? ” 

It did surprise Royd, for he had longed too ardently 
for this to grasp its possibility. The lawyer filled the 
pause that seemed like to follow by babble of young 
Bancroft’s extravagance, his debts and difficulties; and 
Royd, as he listened, wondered vaguely if this smooth 
old man of law talked so much at large upon his own 


i 5 8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


affairs. Yet the one thought only held his mind, and 
for awhile it stunned him; the Heights was to be mort¬ 
gaged, and he had money to buy.up the mortgages; 
and after that—why, mortgages ’ \yere apt to fall in 
when a spendthrift sought the road-'to.ruin. 

“ Mr. Bancroft will find it difficult to pull up, I fear,” 
the lawyer was saying when Royd fame out of his ab¬ 
straction. “ I should have called on you at a more 
Christian hour, Mr. Royd, but for my host’s extrava¬ 
gancy. After we had dined, he must set me down to 
drink with him,—or seem to drink, for I value a clear 
head,—and when at last I thought to make good my 
escape, I found he was deeper in his cups than I had 
guessed, and I had perforce to see him to his bed.” 

“ Is the whole property to be mortgaged—‘the house 
and lands, and all the farms? ” he asked, disregarding 
the lawyer’s tattle. “ I should have thought he would 
have mortgaged them one by one, not all together.” 

“ Ay, but he shrank from the notion. He has held 
his head too high in the parish, and he would not 
borrow on his property till he was driven to it. He 
had kept few accounts; he scarcely knew how deep in 
debt he was; and then the whisper went abroad that his 
credit was worth nothing, and the creditors began to 
press. Pay one, pay all, he found that he must mort¬ 
gage every yard of land to meet his liabilities. A sad 
story, Mr. Royd, a sad story.” The lawyer’s eyes were 
misty; for the spectacle of a man throwing money— 
hard, golden guineas—into the mire had always power 
to touch his feelings. 


ON THE THRESHOLD 


*59 


Royd’s stupefaction was over. Alert and keen again, 
he pushed to one side the knowledge that this was the 
crown of a life’s work to him, and remembered only 
that here was a clear bargain to be driven. His cool¬ 
ness, indeed, when measured by the years of striving 
and of hoping that had been devoted to this very object, 
was such as his father would have applauded. 

“ I do not care much for land,” he said quietly; “ but 
if the sum advanced were well covered—” 

“ Well covered ? ” broke in the lawyer. “ The 
Heights lands are—” 

“ You will pardon me,” Royd interrupted in his turn, 
smiling slightly, “ but I should know more of the 
Heights lands, and of their value, than you can tell me. 
They were good land once, Mr. Fairchild,—in my 
father’s day,—but they have gone back in the last 
twenty years. The Bancrofts, father and son, have 
grudged labour and the constant tillage that the land 
must have. They have let the farm-buildings go much 
their own way, and the dilapidations are serious. It 
needs experience to handle land aright. How much 
does Mr. Bancroft wish to borrow ? ” 

“ Twelve thousand pounds—a big sum to a landed 
gentleman, sir, but a trifle to the prosperous mill- 
owner.” The lawyer’s voice was smooth, for he had 
set his mind on negotiating the business without delay, 
and had indeed stopped at Royd’s door to-night with 
no other purpose. 

“ Softly, Mr. Fairchild, softly,” laughed the other. 
“ Twelve thousand is no trifle to any man, and the 


i6o 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Heights property would scarcely fetch the half of it in 
the open market. I will lend eight thousand on the 
security you offer.” 

“ But, sir, this is hard bargaining on your part; I 
naturally wished to do the best for both my clients—to 
raise money for the one, and to offer an admirable in¬ 
vestment to the other—but eight thousand! It is a 
paltry sum. I must search elsewhere, I fear, if I am 
to do justice to Mr. Bancroft’s interests.” This with a 
quick glance at Royd. 

The other did not move a muscle. “ As you please,” 
he said carelessly. “ I do not care over much for land, 
as I said, and if you can secure a larger sum elsewhere, 
by all means do so.” 

“ We should be able to come to better terms,—in¬ 
deed, I think that with a little give-and-take on either 
side we might arrange the matter,” said the lawyer 
hastily. For the Heights lay far from any beaten track, 
and he doubted if any man would take up the mortgage, 
even for eight thousand pounds, so readily as Stephen 
Royd, whose folk had lived there aforetime. 

Royd, practised in reading the temper of a man, knew 
that he held the matter in the hollow of his hand. “ Mr. 
Fairchild,” he said brusquely, “ it is not sound business, 
as you know, to advance money up to the full value of 
the land mortgaged. Suppose we say this property is 
worth twelve thousand? It is a generous estimate. 
Well, I am willing to lend ten thousand on it and not a 
penny more. Will your client be satisfied with that, or 
do you propose to go elsewhere? ” 

The lawyer thought awhile, then, “ I will see what 


ON THE THRESHOLD 


161 


can be done,” he said. “ Mr. Bancroft will be disap¬ 
pointed, doubtless, but you have met me a certain way 
in the matter. Yes, yes, I think it can be arranged.” 

Royd drew a long breath. He knew that the busi¬ 
ness was as good as settled; if any other man stepped 
in with a larger offer—a chance remote enough to be 
neglected—then Lawyer Fairchild would come to him 
again; if not, the mortgage would fall to him at the 
sum he had named. He would have advanced double 
the amount, in point of fact; but the other, shrewd 
enough upon occasion, was a child in Royd’s hands 
when business was toward. 

“ There! we are free to talk of lighter matters. I 
hope that I have done a good day’s work for both 
sides,” cried the lawyer, tapping his snuff-box and 
handing it to his host. “ I always take a pinch, Mr. 
Royd, after finishing a business talk; it seems to clinch 
the matter, sir, and to give it a fragrance of its own.” 

As for Royd, he could scarcely keep up a show of 
talk while the lawyer sipped his wine and gossiped of 
fifty trivial matters. The long low house upon the hill 
was his at last—‘was his in sure prospect if not in pres¬ 
ent ownership. He wished to be alone with his content¬ 
ment, and the other’s slow enjoyment of his wine 
seemed long protracted to the last degree. 

“ You know Squire Cunliffe well? ” said the lawyer 
by and by, glancing quietly at Royd. 

“ He is one of the oldest of my friends,” Royd an¬ 
swered, and the other could not understand his flush, 
nor knew that at the moment he was thinking of little 
Barbara. 


162 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Ah, is he—is he sound, think ye? ” 

“ Sound ? ” cried Royd, turning round upon the law¬ 
yer; “ if any man in Marshcotes or Ling Crag is sound, 
it is Squire Cunliffe.” 

The lawyer took another pinch of snuff, and another 
sip of wine. “ Well, well, one has one’s doubts. The 
gentry live so fast a pace nowadays, and everywhere 
the men of trade seem to be stepping into older shoes. 
So he is sound, say ye? I am glad to hear as much, 
very glad, for he bears a good name on the Bench, and 
a good name in the parish.” 

Royd lifted his brows; it was old news that Squire 
Cunliffe was in good repute within the borders of his 
own world, and he wondered if Lawyer Fairchild could 
find no fresher gossip than this. 

“And trade, Mr. Royd?” went on the other. 
“ There are whispers of unrest down Saxilton way. 
They talk of a strike. I trust your simpler folk upon 
the moors here are more contented with their lot.” 

“ I trust so too,” Royd answered grimly. “ It is 
touch and go, Mr. Fairchild,—they are ‘ havy-cavy,’ 
as we say in Marshcotes, and a breath one way or the 
other may turn the balance.” 

“ Ah, that is a pity. Arcadian simplicity—content 
—all disappearing, eh?” murmured the lawyer, with 
the light air of one who is well fed and well lined with 
wine. 

“ I never found much difference as to content,” 
laughed Royd. “ There’s no man so rustic but he has 
wit to find a hundred causes of complaint. What, must 
you go already? Then let me see you to your horse. 


ON THE THRESHOLD 


163 


He did not return within doors after bidding fare¬ 
well to his guest, but crossed the beck and made up the 
pasture-fields until he reached the highway out to 
Wynyates. He had to start on a long ride at five of 
the next morning, as he had told Parson Horrocks, but 
there could be no question of sleep for him until he had 
snatched a peep at the old homestead. His chance had 
come to him, after twenty years of waiting; the mort¬ 
gage would be his beyond a doubt, and by and by, if 
all went well, he would foreclose. For Bancroft he had 
no feeling of any kind; he was merely the puppet who 
stood between himself and what he coveted with all his 
brain and all his heart; his sneers were forgotten, his 
scarce-credited rivalry for Barbara’s hand; he could not 
hate him, as he had thought to do awhile since—he 
simply glanced beyond him to the goal in sight. 

Never was night more kindly to a heated fancy. The 
moon, down-dropping toward the heath, whose harsh¬ 
est lines it softened, was set in a tender sky of blue and 
amethyst and opal; the wind, too lazy to do anything 
but stir at fitful intervals, had captured a whole year’s 
warmth and a whole year’s fragrance, so it seemed, 
from the budding bracken and the breaking ling-leaves 
over which it passed; a night when the thought of a 
maid is sweet, and remembrance of endeavour past is 
restful. 

Silent the land stretched out before him; to the left, 
the dip of Hazel Dene, and beyond it the dim and soli¬ 
tary moor; to the right, the wider trough of Conie 
Crag Ravine, on the farther slope of which stood the 
two houses—the Heights and Wynyates—which 


164 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


bounded Royd’s world upon the sunward side. To 
right and left, to front and rear, the ranged wonderland 
of hills, line beyond line, curve beyond curve, receding 
into the purple gloaming of the moors. Well as he 
loved it all, it had never shown so fair a face to Royd; 
and he, who had snatched joy at hazard for twenty 
years, and had had little leisure for piety of any sort, 
could only thank God for His clemency. 

He could see the Heights now—the long low gable, 
the dark lines of trees that shut it in, the dipping, 
kindly fields below—and he saw it with new eyes. He 
had let his heart run out to Barbara to-night; but she, 
had she plighted troth with him, might well have 
harboured jealousy for this house that stood neighbour 
to old Wynyates. Let him live constant as he might 
to her, there would ever be two loves in his life—love 
of Barbara, and passion for the homestead of his 
race. 

It had been almost a nightly pilgrimage with him, 
this walk to the corner of the road from which he could 
see the house of his desire across the intervening valley; 
and now, as he leaned against the wall, and looked, and 
felt the new thrill of possession master him, he could 
scarce realise what the night’s work had done for him. 
A grouse plained from up the moor; the note was a 
part of all old dreams. A farm-lad’s lantern twinkled 
on the slope; he knew the gleam of it, and hazarded a 
guess that there was sickness in the mistals. The kind¬ 
liness of other days was with him; and on the Heights 
there was the rose-red dawn of many days to come. 
Whatever the future held for Stephen Royd, he had 


ON THE THRESHOLD 165 

had his hour of life, here within sight of the long low 
house upon the hill. 

The same impulse stirred him by and by that had 
stirred graceless Tim o’ Tab’s. Barbara would be 
sleeping, up at Wynyates yonder; her chamber-window 
would be open to the mellow night; what if he went, 
like any love-sick lad, and whispered a God-speed to 
her dreams? Down the long slack he went, and up 
the rise, and into the Wynyates courtyard. The moon¬ 
light was greying on her window; from within the 
house the squire’s mastiff bayed in echo to his foot¬ 
steps; there was a strange eeriness about the home¬ 
stead, and failing moon and baying of the dog seemed 
in drear accordance with each other. But Royd heeded 
them not; he was swung beyond himself to-night; he 
remembered what the Parson had said to him, of Ban¬ 
croft and of Barbara; and he told himself that surely 
both prophecies must come true, since one had been so 
quickly verified. 

Only the owls and the fitful breeze knew what he 
thought as he stood and watched the window; but 
Barbara, even as a child, had touched his chivalry and 
tenderness, and since childhood’s days her claims on 
him had deepened. Reverence, to a surety, there was; 
he was strong enough for that. And under the rever¬ 
ence a keen, deep need of her was present. 

He was roused by footsteps on the courtyard stones, 
and looking up he saw the figure of the Squire, bent 
almost beyond recognition. Like one who is heavy 
with sleep walked Squire Cunliffe, and he gazed in 
doubt at the unexpected watcher. 


i66 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ It is I, sir,—Stephen Royd,—I fear I startled you,” 
said the younger man, coming to himself more quickly 
than the older. 

The Squire fumbled with his hands, and his voice 
was tired and heavy. “ Stephen ? Have you called 
then, and they would not disturb me at my—at my 
work—to come and entertain you ? ” 

“ No, I have not called,” the other answered softly. 
“ I could not sleep, and so walked up and down the 
road to drive the vapours out; and Wynyates looked 
so calm beneath the moonlight that I stayed still to 
look at it.” 

The Squire, though the meeting was late beyond all 
claims upon his hospitality, could not forget old usage. 
“ You will take a glass of wine with me, Stephen, be¬ 
fore you walk home again ? ” 

“ I thank you, no, sir. It is time that both of us 
were abed.” 

He paused a moment, full of'his great news of the 
Heights, and eager to confide it to a friend’s ear; but 
he refrained—partly from a reticence ingrained, and 
partly from regard for the Squire’s air of weariness— 
and swung off down the road after a good-night given 
and received. The omission was to cost him much, 
could he have known it; but there was never a doubt 
in his mind as he strode uphill and down, and nursed 
his picture of Barbara at the Heights. 

A gay voice came up the dark of Hazel Dene as he 
neared the mill, and he wondered who could be abroad 
at this late hour. 


ON THE THRESHOLD 


167 


“ The moon is on the bents, old lads, 

And the hares are still and grey, 

An’ there’s use i’ a net at th’ gap of a wall 
When ye’ve nobbut learned th’ way.” 

came the song. 

Royd laughed as he recognised the voice, and the 
spirit of the verse, which in itself proclaimed the 
songster to be Tim o’ Tab’s. 

“ Now poachers three for keepers five 
Are enough of a match, begow, 

Or else we’se find no way to thrive 
By making parsley grow. 

We sowed it thick i’ th’ spring, 

An’ a rare rich crop it’s born; 

An’ hares are fain of a parsley-ring 
As a mare is fond of corn.” 

The singer stopped midway in his song as he brushed 
against Royd in the darkness. 

“ So you’re home to bed at last, Tim ? ” Royd cried. 

“ Oh, it’s ye, is’t ? That’s queer, Maister Royd, for 
it’s th’ second time to-neet,” answered Tim, searching 
the darkness with an eye that was well accustomed to 
it. “ Ay, I’m home to bed, for I’ve no belly, like, for 
poaching.” 

“ Why, I fancied you’d been at it ever since I saw 
you last.” 

“ Nay,”—Tim’s voice was sheepish,—“ nay, I like 
as I went to look at a wench’s chamber-window. I’m 
young for my years, maister, ye see, an’ ye’ll noan 
understand sich fooilishness.” 


i68 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Maybe not/’ said Royd, and went down the rough 
pathway by the stream. 

The meeting pleased him well. Tim and he had 
been good friends together in their boyhood; and to¬ 
night, in their manhood, they had obeyed the self-same 
impulse. 

“ He shall have a free run of the Heights lands when 
I come to my own again/' murmured Royd. 

And he remembered that Barbara, too, was very 
partial to this same Tim o’ Tab’s. 


CHAPTER IX 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 

T HE stocks at Marshcotes were set, with a pretty 
dryness of wit, fair between the church and 
the Bull Tavern; nor could a better site have 
offered, since on the one hand the sinners drinking in 
the Bull could take a salutary warning from them, and 
on the other hand, the godly sort, as they came from 
church, could have a full and satisfactory view of any 
erring brother who chanced to be suffering for his mis¬ 
deeds. Sunday, indeed, was the favourite day for im¬ 
prisoning culprits in the stocks; and on this sunny Sab¬ 
bath morning they were graced by no less notorious a 
character than Tim o’ Tabs. His terrier was close on 
his right hand, and master and dog had never shown so 
great a likeness to one another as now, when they were 
sitting side by side, each with his patched right eye, each 
with a grave sense of publicity and a gay disregard of 
shame. A little way off stood Billy Puff, gloating over 
his captive, and reminding Tim from time to time that 
he had vowed to be even with him soon or late; and 
Tim himself was disposed to think this a heavy price 
for the jests he had enjoyed at Billy Puff’s expense. 

There was Sabbath in the air of Marshcotes village; 
the steep street, hidden by the shoulder of the tavern, 
169 


170 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


leaned sleepily against the hillside, and no clamour of 
lumbering wains or of heavy pack-horse hoofs disturbed 
its silence; from the grey kirk there came the voices 
of men who praised their Maker for His gifts of sun 
and shower and western wind; the flowers that bloomed 
above the graves gave out, it seemed, a softer and a 
deeper fragrance than they did on working days, and 
from the moor beyond there came such scents as only 
spring and sunshine can draw from peat and bilberry, 
ling and the budding bracken shoots. The world sat 
with folded hands, and dreamed awhile, and fancied 
time stood still upon this day of rest. And over all 
there was that peace not easy to be understood—that 
quiet look of the house-fronts, and hush of feet upon 
the road, which in themselves proclaim the Sabbath. 

Only the rascal in the stocks disturbed the sense of 
quiet. Neighbours had passed, and had stayed for a 
word with Tim, and had passed on again; he had 
winked at one, had thrust his tongue into his cheek at 
another, had laughed gaily with a third; and his air 
said plainly enough that he took the rough with the 
smooth in this life, and never grumbled at the shrewd 
knocks of circumstances. From time to time he glanced 
slily at Billy Puff, and smiled a little with one side of 
his mouth, and mutely thanked Heaven that he, Tim o' 
Tab’s, the stocks notwithstanding, could never look 
quite so scant of wit as Billy. 

Very full of his morning’s work was the constable; 
and the more he strutted up and down the square—- 
turning now and then to bestow a lofty glance upon 
his captive, and blowing out his cheeks portentously— 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 171 


the more he hugged himself. He had been trailed in 
presence of Tabitha Hirst, whom he had thoughts of 
making his wife, if upon due reflection he should decide 
that she was worthy; no longer than two days ago he 
had been scoffed at for sticking midway in a stile; and 
this was the constable’s return thrust. There was more 
than this, too; for Tim represented all that was most 
dangerous and lawless in the parish; he was the apostle 
of poaching, gaming, cock-fighting, and all the sins that 
make against sobriety; it was safe at any time to lay 
him by the heels, for what he had just done, or for what 
he was about to do; but not every day did the constable 
catch him red-handed, as he had done this morning. 
So Billy Puff could not bear to go farther from his 
prisoner than the other end of the square; like a cat 
with a mouse, he was eager to play with Tim o’ Tab’s 
in his own ponderous way. 

“ Well, then? ” said the constable, coming to a halt 
at two yards distance from the stocks, and blowing out 
his cheeks more vigorously even than was his wont. 
“ Well, then, Tim o’ Tab’s, art still minded to break 
the laws of this realm, as by the King and Parliament 
established ? ” 

“ Ay,” answered Tim, with shameless unconcern, 
“ soon as iver I get my feet out o’ these bonnie planks. 
Dost think they mak laws for nowt, Billy Puff? Nay, 
lad! ’Tis just for th’ sport o’ seeing ’em broken by 
men wi’ spirit. Laws is like eggs—there’s no meat to 
be getten from ’em till they’re broken.” 

“ Men with spirit! ” echoed the constable, with a 
glance of irony. 


IJ2 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Ay—little, wiry chaps like myseln. Tha’s ‘ getten 
body, lad, so be content if thy spirit be small as a 
smallish mouse-hole.” 

This was not at all what the constable had expected; 
it was his turn to laugh at Tim, surely, and he resented 
the other’s unflagging flow of spirits under a punish¬ 
ment that was enough to make most men hide their 
heads for shame. 

“ An’ where would tha be, Billy, if theer war no folk 
sich as me? ” went on the culprit gaily. “ Tha’d be no 
use at all—tha’d starve i’ a ditch, if it warn’t for soft¬ 
hearted lads like myseln, that frame to break th’ peace 
now an’ again just to gie thee sumrnat to do. Why, 
I keep thee, lad; I’m ligging i’ th’ stocks this varry 
minute to addle thy bread for thee; an’ it’s a shameless 
chap ’at turns up his nose at his own bread-an’-cheese.” 

“ Tha talks like a fooil, like a food,” stammered the 
constable as he mopped his wet red brow. 

“ For tha knaws, Billy, weel as iver I can tell thee,” 
said Tim, in persuasive, confidential tones, “ that tha’d 
niver addle owt at ony other trade—save cobbling, 
mebbe. Tha hesn’t a notion o’ th’ way to snare a 
grouse, or a pheasant, or a conie even; tha—” 

“ Dang thee! ” cried Billy Puff, still clinging to the 
remnants of his dignity, “ if tha hed th’ whole burden 
o’ th’ King’s Peace on thy shoulders, as I hev, tha’d be 
less lightsome i’ thy talk.” 

From the church above, the Parson’s resonant voice 
was dimly audible as he made forward with the service. 
Tim o’ Tab’s listened for awhile with wondrous grav¬ 
ity; and the terrier, seeing his head turned upward to 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 173 


the churchyard for so long, moved his own head side¬ 
ways—guessing there was a hare in sight, maybe— 
with an imitation that emphasised more ludicrously still 
the likeness between man and dog. The constable, see¬ 
ing them both so fixed in their attention, thought that 
the saving grace of humility was falling on the pair of 
them; and he waddled three paces nearer to the stocks, 
prepared to take full advantage of any weakness on 
the other’s part. Tim, however, turned a bright eye 
on him as he approached, and resumed the easy flow 
of banter which was helping so well to pass the time 
of durance for him. 

“ I’m noan for saying tha does mich for thy living, 
Billy—nowt save a two-three hours a day o’ strutting, 
an’ blowing out thy cheeks, an’ carring behind walls 
for chaps ’at tha canst niver catch i’ th’ oppen. Nay, 
I would niver tak thy gooid name away, by saying ’at 
tha worked; all I war for telling thee—” 

“ Dang thee, I’ll clout thy head! I’ll ”—cried Billy 
Puff, no longer able to control himself. “ Leastways, 
I would if it were lawful ” he added tentatively. 

“ Clout away, Billy! Tha’s getten a likelier chance 
nor tha’ll see for a twelvemonth again. Eh, but tha’rt 
a rare plucked un! His Majesty mun hev been fearful 
proud when he pressed the likes o’ thee into his service.” 

And so the dialogue went on, until the constable 
began to edge away, and to wonder if, after all, he had 
not better have left this light-tongued rascal to his own 
devices. Tim’s high-pitched voice was plainly audible, 
meanwhile, during the pauses of the service, to the 
worshippers within the church; and twice the Squire 


1 74 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


stirred uneasily in his pew, though he could not catch 
the burden of the dialogue, nor guess that Tim was 
undergoing penance in the market-square without. 

The church was filled this morning; and there was 
no corner of it but seemed as intimate a part of the 
moor-life as the heather and the sparse green fields that 
shut it in. The rude building, with the mortar scarcely 
smoothed between its rugged blocks of stones, the oaken 
gallery running round three sides of it; the dark, three- 
storied pulpit; the farm-dogs, showing each a Sabbath 
face, decorous and a trifle wistful, between their mas¬ 
ter’s legs—all these were as much in keeping with the 
moors as were the hard lean faces of the farmers, the 
more nicely chiselled, but still rugged, features of the 
gentry. And the clerk, who read the responses with a 
good Marshcotes burr, was himself as rough-hewn a 
bit of millstone grit as the walls which he regarded as 
his own especial property. The Squire’s pew stood 
nearest to the chancel, and folk’s eyes returned again 
and again, with an added sense of rest, to Barbara’s 
slight figure and little proud-poised head—returned, 
too, to the Squire, whose back was stiff and straight 
as if it had never been bowed under weight of the 
midnight hours which he had spent in the loft above the 
Wynyates mistals. In the gallery high up above the 
Squire and clerk and farmer-folk, the skilled musicians 
of the moors added music of the fiddle, the hautboy, 
and the clarionet, to the sturdy voices >of the congrega¬ 
tion; and all was heart-whole and untrammelled as the 
wind that piped its own sweet note of praise through 
the wide-open door. 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 175 


The psalms were finished, and again Tim’s voice came 
shrilly from without The Squire’s mastiff, Grip, 
stirred as uneasily as did his master; for Tim o’ Tab’s 
and he were allies of old standing. Barbara, smiling, 
stooped to the dog, whose head was laid against her 
gown. 

“ Quiet, lad,” she whispered, smoothing his brown 
ears. “ Dost not know that all the farm-dogs look to 
thee for manners? ” 

The mastiff glanced at her, then sank back into his 
place again with only the head and fore-paws showing 
underneath the seat; nor did he forget the family tra¬ 
ditions again until the silence came that preceded Par¬ 
son Horrocks up the narrow pulpit-stair. 

The rustle of the gowns was over, the creaking of the 
pews as burly farmer-folk settled themselves to give the 
one half of their minds to Parson Horrocks, the other 
to the crops which knew no seventh day of rest. Every¬ 
one was waiting for the text, when Tim’s voice sounded 
once again from the market-square, as he resumed his 
light-hearted banter of the constable. Grip glanced 
eloquently at Barbara, but she shook her head, and for 
the next ten minutes he wrestled with his inclination; 
then, seeing that his mistress was paying no heed to 
him, he found temptation over-strong. The pew door 
was unlatched, as it chanced, and before the Squire or 
Barbara guessed his purpose, Grip had pulled it open 
with one fore-foot and had walked out into the aisle. 
All eyes were turned to him, as he stalked down toward 
the door with the slow step and solemn front that wit¬ 
nessed to his sense of responsibility; even the Parson 


176 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


smiled, as he looked down in the middle of his simple 
homily, and saw each moorland collie stretching out its 
neck to watch the mastiff, with a wistfulness that told 
how great their longing was to follow him. And 
Stephen Royd, whose eyes had never wandered far 
from the Squire’s pew, thought that he had never seen 
little Barbara look so fair, as she leaned over the side of 
the high pew with a look of laughter in her face, and a 
half shame for her mastiff’s lack of manners, and an 
impulse, quickly checked, to go in pursuit and teach 
him wholesome discipline. 

Grip had reached Tim o’ Tab’s in a good hour, how¬ 
ever; for, just as Tim was driving the constable alto¬ 
gether from the field, a company of roystering ne’er- 
do-weels came by. Had they been Marsheotes folk 
they would never have thought of meddling with such 
a common favourite as Tim; but as it was they sent 
up a great shout when they saw that the stocks were 
filled, and they ran, some one way and some another, to 
ransack the neighbouring houses of such eggs as they 
afforded. Tim, seeing them return with full hands, 
settled himself as comfortably as might be to await the 
coming trouble; nor did he bear the least malice, for a 
fellow-feeling told him that they were merely in search 
of sport of any kind, and that he chanced to come 
convenient to them, just as a conie, a pheasant, or a 
grouse, was a welcome incident to any journey of his 
own. None—save Parson Horrocks, perhaps—guessed 
what true philosophy this one-eyed rogue had gleaned 
from sky and field and open moor. 

The constable, for his part, was smiling broadly, and 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 177 

blessing these wayfarers who had come to rescue him 
from his enemy’s too nicely-pointed wit. He had seen 
men under a fire of rotten eggs, and he remembered 
their appearance after the ordeal. 

“ We shall see who’s th’ better man,” he murmured, 
rubbing his plump hands together. “ Ay, we shall see, 
for sure, an’—” 

He stopped on the sudden, and his cheeks whitened; 
for Grip, Barbara’s mastiff, once he was out of sight of 
the congregation, had set off at a round trot in the 
direction of his old comrade’s voice. Grip was the size 
of a three-months’ calf, and he had that grave cast of 
jaw and eye which hides all hint of inner motive in a 
dog. 

“ Lord save us, we shall be swallowed whole—an’ 
niver come to burial i’ Christian soil! ” cried Billy Puff 
forlornly. 

The leader of the new-comers was just lifting a hand 
to throw his first egg When the mastiff reached the foot 
of the churchyard path, and sighted Tim, and came to 
him, setting a broad pair of paws on his shoulders while 
he licked his weather-beaten face. The philosophy that 
had led Tim o’ Tab’s to accept the ordeal tranquilly led 
him now to accept deliverance with equal spirit. 

“ Hi, lad! Grip! Set ’em! ” he cried. 

The mastiff obeyed; and trouble might have fol¬ 
lowed, had not Tim, from sheer kindness of heart, re¬ 
called him to his side. Then Tim o’ Tab’s looked 
round. The square was cleared, save for the burly 
form of Billy Puff, who was vainly striving to squeeze 
himself into little compass against the churchyard wall. 


i 7 8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


The mastiff had turned to exchange distant courtesies 
with Flick, who, after the manner of the small fry of 
this world, was taking unwarrantable liberties with the 
bigger dog. 

“ So/’ said Tim, reaching out to pat the mastiff’s 
head, “ a friend in need is a friend indeed, Grip lad. 
Billy Puff, come forth an’ swagger; the dog shall do 
thee no hurt.” 

“ I’d be easier i’ my mind, I wod, if I war sure on’t,” 
murmured Billy. 

“ Billy Puff come forth an’ learn a lesson ’at tha 
missed i’ babbyhood. Tha’rt free, an’ proud o’ thy 
coit an’ breeches; I lig here, wi’ a tattered coit an’ a 
shameless name. Ay, but dogs hev a curious scent for 
th’ inward grace of a man; an’ Grip here says, plain 
as noonday, ‘ Tim, my lad, tha’rt th’ better man this 
day, for all thy pretty ankle-straps.’ Eh, Billy Puff, 
tha’s getten a lot to learn,—a lot to learn.” 

Tim finished with a sigh; but the constable had 
crossed to the open door of the Bull, and was already 
out of earshot. He was anxious to avoid the mastiff’s 
neighbourhood; and he had, moreover, hatched a pretty 
scheme of torture. The bar-window of the inn looked 
out upon the stocks; it was open this morning, to let 
in the sunlight and the wind—the sunlight that was 
parching Tim’s throat, and the wind that carried to 
him tantalising odours from the summer uplands. The 
constable, after securing a pewter-pot of home-brewed, 
went to the window with it, and called softly to his 
prisoner; then, as Tim looked round, he blew a light 
sea of froth towards him, and drank, and smacked his 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 179 


lips. Drier and drier grew Tim’s throat, and greater 
the fascination that drew his eyes towards the brightly 
burnished pewter that caught ihe sun-rays. 

“ Ay, but it’s gooid to be a lawful subject—varry 
gooid it is, Tim o’ Tab’s. It goes down fair like new 
milk, does this tap o’ home-brewed,” said the constable 
with ponderous gravity. 

Tim’s heart grew exceeding sore, and his body ex¬ 
ceeding dry, as the constable went slowly through with 
his quart of ale; yet to all Billy Puff’s comments, and 
smackings of the lips, and self-congratulations, he 
turned a deaf ear and a seamy-coated back. He fixed 
his eyes instead upon the old churchyard above, where 
the battered headstones kept watch and ward above 
their graves—where the Parsonage, sturdy and grim, 
stood midway between this Dead Man’s acre and the 
moor—where the flies danced in the sun-rays, and the 
buttercups lifted cool lips of gold to a sky of deep 
unalterable blue, and the wind was busy as the bees 
that frolicked down its path. 

The Parson had preached by this time; the fiddles 
and hautboys were sliding into the last hymn; and 
by and by there came through open door and open 
windows the round, full psalm of thankfulness by which 
the Marshcotes folk replaced, one day a week, their 
wonted outlook on the scheme of things. 

Strange pulses were stirred in Tim o’ Tab’s as he let 
the spirit of the hour creep in and master him. Old 
recollections claimed their due, and memories of child¬ 
hood blended with the thoughts of later years. He 
forgot the puffy constable behind him, forgot his thirst 


i8o 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


and the dull aching of his limbs; for the sound of 
Sabbath singing, which links a man to all old kindli¬ 
ness and peace, had found his heart for him. 

“ Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” said 
the wind to the rascal, as it floated past his ears. 

“ Ay, begow! ” he muttered; “ an’ praise God hev I 
done iver sin’ I learned to net a hare. Theer’s ups an’ 
theer’s downs i’ life, an’ none ’ud deny it—but it’s a 
merry game enough, tak it all in all. Yond’s Squire 
Cunliffe’s voice; ye can tell it amang a thousand, so 
big an’ hearty an’ full o’ sweet-smelling pride it is. 
Well, it’s main queer about th’ Squire. If th’ parish 
knew what I knaw, they’d wonder how he keeps his 
head so high as he does. He taks it sorely to heart, 
an’ all; he willun’t show his hands unless he’s forced 
to, he’s fearful fond o’ hiding ’em under gloves—as if 
his trade iver muckied hand so mich as wod let folk 
guess at it. Poor owd Squire! I wish I could ease th’ 
harness a bit, that I do.” 

“ Wilt hev a quart? ” came the constable’s voice from 
the window. 

But Tim was past hearing him. “ An’ yond’s little 
Mistress Barbara’s thrush-note,” he went on, “ proud 
as her father’s, only softer by th’ half, Mistress Bar¬ 
bara ! Eh, but theer’s noan like her, I mind her when 
she war no higher nor a field o’ oats at harvest-time. 
Well, well, theer’s a queer mak o’ summat i’ a young 
lass—summat ’at a man cannot reckon rightly, though 
it twists him round an’ about like a weather-cock. Lord, 
how her voice runs through all t’others, like a thread 
o’ silvern water through a wood. Dang Billy Puff! I 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 181 


doan't care if all th’ parish sees me, saving Mistress 
Barbara. Dang Billy Puff! ” 

“ Tha’s time for a sup, lad, afore I let thee free— 
lots o’ time,” put in the constable. 

Still Tim disdained reply. “ Eve thowt to myseln, 
time an’ time,” he murmured, as if in wonder at his 
own mood, “ Eve thowt ’at if ’th’ little mistress war 
to look fair shamed o’ me, I mud go varry nigh to living 
a sour sort o’ respectable life, like mony another fooil 
i’ the parish. But theer! Em ower owd now, Eve a 
fancy. They’re coming fro’ th’ kirk, are they ? ” he 
broke off, as he saw the village lads and lasses, all in 
their Sabbath best, straggle out among the grave¬ 
stones. 

He glanced at Billy Puff; and the nearness of Bar¬ 
bara’s approach, which he dreaded with peculiar weak¬ 
ness, moved him to humble himself for the first time 
before the constable—though his voice bore witness, 
when he spoke, how much against the grain it went to 
put in any plea for mercy. 

“ Billy,” he said, “ wilt let me go free afore th’ folk 
come down fro’ th’ kirk? ” 

The constable swelled with recovered pride of cap¬ 
ture. “ Niver,” he cried. “ Tha’rt theer to show ’em 
what a wise thing, as weel as a godly, it is to go to 
kirk o’ Sunday i’stead of running into mischief.” 

Tim pleaded no more; but his head was not held 
so high now, and there was growing apprehension in 
his glance as he saw a fine figure of a man come out 
from the church porch—a tall, straight-standing man, 
in a cut-away green coat, a silken waistcoat, and a shirt 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


182 

that was frilled with a nice regard to its wearer’s 
fastidiousness. Tim, looking at him, was struck afresh 
by the old Squire’s gallant bearing; Sunday mornings 
seemed always to make a new man of him, to smooth 
the creases from his face and to show him to the 
world for what he was—a prosperous, upright gentle¬ 
man, whose duty and whose pride alike it was to lead 
the parish. Little Barbara was on his arm, and his 
grey head was bent toward her, a little, in deference 
to her height, as she talked laughingly of the mastiff’s 
recent escapade and threatened Grip with her severe 
displeasure. 

The Marshcotes and Ling Crag folk had a keen sense 
of birth, and as keen a reluctance to admit it by any 
outward sign of speech or manner. Yet the old Squire 
was even nearer to their hearts than was their love of 
independence; they knew him through and through— 
knew him to be modest as a child in himself, yet full 
of a wondrous stiff and simple pride, down-handed by 
the long line of honest-dealing Cunliffes who had gone 
before him. He knew every neighbour, and every 
neighbour’s bairn, by name, and had a word for each; 
he could grieve at their sorrow and be glad with them 
in time of prosperity; he was, moreover, Barbara’s 
father—and was not Barbara the wonder and the 
worship of the parish? So it fell about that a lane 
was formed this morning, according to habit, on either 
side of the flagged path that led from the church door 
to the Bull; women curtseyed as the Cunliffes, father 
and daughter, passed them; and men, who had no time 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 183 

for manners six days of the week made shift to doff 
their hats. 

“ Well, neighbour Haggas, can you grumble at the 
weather God has given us to-day?” said the Squire, 
as a burly farmer touched a forelock to him. 

“ Nay, nay, Squire—save that th’ tummits is sadly 
dry for want of a sup o’ rain.” 

“ I care nothing at all for your turnips, Mr. Hag- 
gas,” said Barbara, turning to him with a pretty smile, 
“ the weather is under my charge to-day, and there is 
not going to be a single drop of rain.” 

“Fie, fie, little Barbara! The weather in your 
charge? Heresy, rank heresy—and plain truth, too, 
for it would be hard weather indeed that refused to do 
your bidding,” chimed in Parson Horrocks, who had 
hastily cast off gown and bands and had joined the 
Squire with a view to their customary bottle of port 
at the Bull. 

The gentry of the parish followed. Stephen Royd, 
who never felt the hand of trade so grimy on him as 
on these Sabbath mornings, and who, from growing 
habit, stood aloof from his fellows, watching friends 
give greeting to one another and lovers make their 
whispered assignations, all with the dispassionate 
glance of one who is shut off as by a wall from human 
sympathy. Close after Royd came Bancroft of the 
Heights, with a jaunty step and a glance that chal¬ 
lenged all the country lasses as he passed them; and 
after him came other gallants, in yellow, buff, or snow- 
white waistcoats, with well-turned thighs and calves 


184 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


that showed to full advantage under their tight knee- 
breeches and silken hose. But no forelocks were 
touched, save to Squire Cunliffe—to the Squire, and 
to little Barbara, in her frock of muslin, waisted high, 
with her laughing face set like a flower beneath her 
hat of Leghorn straw. 

Barbara had fallen behind her father now, after 
giving her place beside him to Parson Horrocks; and 
all three of them moved so slowly between the country¬ 
folk that it seemed they would never be through with 
giving and exchanging greetings. The gallants of the 
moorside came meanwhile to lift their beavers to Bar¬ 
bara, who was the toast of every wine-party, and 
she met them with a pretty friendliness that yet was 
instinct with a certain self-withdrawal. And now and 
then she turned alike from friends of her own station, 
and friends beneath it, to snatch a troubled glance at 
Royd, who stood the one solitary figure in the church¬ 
yard. 

Then, after the gentry had passed, the folk closed in 
across the wide-flagged path, and the second business 
of the day began. Prayer was over, and gossip fol¬ 
lowed ; and the slowness of old days was in the people’s 
tongues and in their lazy movements. A touch of so¬ 
briety held rollick and jest in check, as was seemly on 
the Sabbath day; the farmers, split up into chattering 
groups, would not bargain outright for a beast or a 
sheep, but hinted darkly that, if the Lord spared them, 
they would hold to such and such a bid to-morrow 
morn. 

“ There’s yond dappled beast o’ mine,” Farmer Hag- 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 185 


gas was saying to a neighbour; “ if it warn’t Sunday, 
what would’st gi’e for her? ” 

“ Well, now—I reckon nowt so mich o’ th’ beast. 
What would I gi’e? Well, happen eight pun ten—if 
it warn’t Sunday.” 

“ Mak it nine pun ten—supposing it to be a weekday, 
like.” 

“ Nay, nay, nine pun is all I’d gie; not a step 
further.” 

“ Wilt be i’ th’ same mind to-morn ? ” 

“ Ay, if I’m living.” 

Their hands met, and the summer’s day had a new* 
crispness for both of them, since each was sure that 
he had got at least a pound the better of the other. 

The churchyard, indeed, was at this hour the centre 
of the parish, in no other corner of the moors did so 
many folk of different occupations, different degrees 
of wealth, meet all together; and it was here, more 
than at market or in the busy week-day street, that 
men like Stephen Royd could see how stealthily, yet 
how surely, the new ways were stepping in beside the 
old. Farmer Haggas and his group—florid men, big 
in the beam—followed no trade but husbandry, and 
thrived on it; then there were smaller farmers, who 
looked equally to tillage and to manufacture for their 
livelihood; and behind all these again were knots of 
folk who stood retired as Royd himself—folk who 
glanced often at the Master of Hazel Mill, and talked 
together in low tones. These were the combers whose 
all depended upon trade; and they were discussing, as 
Royd knew, neither the weather nor the crops, but the 


186 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


ever-growing rumours of a strike. One class alone 
was scarcely represented here—the weavers of the 
parish, who found times grievous hard during this glad 
spring weather, and who shrank from meeting their 
neighbours in such threadbare garb as they could 
muster. 

Royd’s brows were drawn together as he watched 
the combers, and listened to scattered fragments of 
their talk. Day by day this question of the strike 
grew more serious, more absorbing to him. It was not 
enough that he could buy back the Heights; he must 
ride safely on the tide that was taking other men to 
ruin, and add a second fortune to his first, and make 
himself secure for good and all against the need for 
going back to trade. And these grave-faced fellows, 
with the obstinate jaws and the suspicious eyes, held 
his success or failure in their hands; it was they, not 
he, who must decide. For a moment he was troubled, 
watching them. They had never dared till now to look 
him in the face with such frank defiance; the burden of 
such talk as drifted past him made to the same purpose; 
it was plain that the storm was growing to a head, and 
that the next few days would settle the matter one 
way or the other. 

He forgot all that, however, as his eyes fell on Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights, who was dangling now by Bar¬ 
bara's side and smiling as he bowed some compliment 
to her. Sunday after Sunday, he had stood aloof 
from his equals, as he was standing now; but never 
before had he felt himself so clearly master of the situ¬ 
ation. Bancroft? His right in the Royd lands was 


HOW THE PARISH WENT TO KIRK 187 


soon to be transferred, and he might ruffle it as he 
would to the end of the brief chapter. And Barbara? 

Ay, that was the real question. And Royd no longer 
felt himself master of the situation. 

Nor did Tim o’ Tab’s, as he sat in the sun-scorched 
stocks, and sucked the end of his neckerchief to ease 
his thirst a little, and watched all the fine-plumaged 
folk of Marshcotes and Ling Crag bear down upon 
him. Before they reached the churchyard gate, how¬ 
ever, another friend of Tim’s, and a close one, came 
by to fill his cup of bitter. 


CHAPTER X 


AND HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 

T ABITHA HIRST, on her way from chapel, 
stopped at sight of Tim, and her strong black 
brows were raised in a fashion that he under¬ 
stood. Then she moved forward along the church side 
of the street, and Tim watched her, knowing—without 
confessing it to himself—that the moment was one to 
test her staunchness once for all. If she were all 
he thought her—and he had no real doubt of it—■ 
she would not pass him by with a toss of the head, 
but would acknowledge him in spite of the stocks and 
his disgraceful plight. Billy Puff, standing at the bar- 
window with his empty pewter in his hand, was like¬ 
wise watching her; and he was sure that she would 
pass him by. To his surprise, however, Tabitha, after 
walking almost past with head averted, turned suddenly 
about, and stepped with heightened colour to the stocks. 

“ Gooid-day, Tim,” she said. “ It’s a queer place 
we meet in, choose what.” 

“ Tabitha,” he answered gravely, “ I trust we’ll niver 
meet i’ a war spot.” 

“ We couldn’t weel, I’m thinking.” 

Her voice was quiet, but Tim knew that she meant 
to give him a “ piece of her mind.” He was overjoyed 
188 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 189 

in consequence to hear Billy Puff come unwittingly to 
his assistance. 

“ He's a poor un to look at, Tabitha, an’ that's 
truth," said Billy, with vast self-complacency. “ It all 
comes o’ breakin' th' laws o’ this realm as by King 
and Parliament established. I telled him how it wod 
be—I telled him—" 

Tabitha turned upon Billy Puff instead of Tim; and 
she was glad to do so. “ Shame on thee! " she cried. 

“Shame on me?" echoed Billy woefully. “Well 
if iver! I alius did say theer war nowt went on two 
legs so queer as a wench! " 

“ An' isn’t it shame, I'd like to knaw, to put such 
as him into th’ stocks?"—with a side-glance at Tim 
which he acknowledged by a look of great self-right¬ 
eousness. “ Tim's fond of his marlaking, Billy Puff, 
but he’s done nowt 'at wod warrant his being clapped i’ 
th' stocks." 

“Theer!" cried Tim, “what did I tell thee, Billy 
Puff? Tabitha says I’ve done nowt, an’ th’ mastiff says 
I’ve done nowt, so what’s th’ use o’ keeping me here? " 

“ I didn’t say ye done nowt," Tabitha put in tartly. 
“If I war axed, I should say ye’d made a food o’ 
yourseln, Tim o’ Tab’s; it’s a trick that comes nat’ral 
to th’ men, I’ve noticed." 

And with that she was gone, leaving Tim in doubt 
as to whether he were glad or sorry she had found 
him there. He had little leisure for reflection, though, 
as another glance up the churchyard path told him. 
The Squire was nearly at the gate already, and he 
could see Barbara’s white gown not far behind. 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


190 

“ Eh, but I wish I war i’ another spot! ” muttered 
Tim o’ Tab’s, and again he braced himself to meet the 
last indignity which this disastrous day had brought 
on him. 

The constable set down his empty mug, and came 
out again into the square; for this was to be the 
moment of his triumph. One glance he gave toward 
the churchyard, to assure himself that his audience was 
already gathering, and then he struck the attitude which 
to his thinking, best suited his character as King’s 
representative. There was many a worse man, indeed, 
than Billy Puff in Marshcotes, but a vainer did not live 
within its borders. Standing off a little from the 
stocks, he surveyed his captive with an air of lofty 
and sorrowful surprise, and his plump red cheeks 
swelled rounder every moment, for pride that the gen¬ 
tlefolk should see what a clever fellow he had shown 
himself to-day. 

“ Where has that dog of mine gone?” the Squire 
was saying, as he and Parson Horrocks moved slowly 
down toward the Bull. “ I have never known him so 
uneasy as he was during service. I fear me, Parson, 
your sermon was over-long for him.” 

“ Why, there he is, keeping guard over some rascal 
in the stocks,” said the Parson, pointing with his cane. 

Squire Cunliffe glanced once at the occupant of the 
stocks, then turned his head away; and there was the 
same look in his grey eyes that had been there when 
he met Tim o’ Tab’s not long ago, down by Water 
Lane. 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 191 


The Parson rattled on, meanwhile, not noticing any¬ 
thing amiss in his old friend’s bearing. 

“ Bless me, Cunlifife, it is that graceless scamp, Tim, 
for whom we all have a good word,” he broke off pres¬ 
ently. 

“ Even at Petty Sessions,” said the Squire, with a 
half-hearted laugh. 

“ Ay, even at Petty Sessions. This is yond fool the 
constable’s work. Why on earth should Billy Puff 
choose just poor Tim to put into stocks on a sweltering 
' day like this? ” 

Tim o’ Tab’s, the mastiff, and the terrier—three mis¬ 
demeanants seated side by side—eyed Parson and 
Squire as they approached the stocks. The Parson 
stopped point-blank, the Squire with a certain hesita¬ 
tion. Tim saluted, and looked the most guileless man 
in Marshcotes, while the mastiff seemed uneasy, as if 
he expected insult to be heaped once again upon this 
friend of his; for Grip was loyal to the Squire only 
in the third degree, and Barbara and Tim o’ Tab’s each 
had a prior claim on his affection. Only the Parson 
and the constable seemed at their ease, and the latter 
showed in every line of his face the pride he had in 
showing his prisoner to two Justices of His Majesty’s 
Peace. 

“ Was it for this I christened thee Timothy? ” said 
Parson Horrocks gravely, with a poke of his cane to 
emphasise each word. It was a jest which had done 
yeoman service in the past, and the Parson was faithful 
to it still. “ Had not the parish, Timothy, shortened 


192 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


thy name to Tim o’ Tab’s, thou hadst never come to 
this. What hast thou done, thou erring sheep, on this 
blessed Sabbath morn, that the stocks should claim thy 
legs?” 

Tim o’ Tab’s winked—very slightly—with the one 
eye left him. But the Parson eyed him still with sor¬ 
rowful gravity. 

“Done?” said Tim; “nay, ask Billy Puff yonder. 
Ony stick is gooid enow to beat a dog wi’,”—with a 
sly glance from Billy to the mastiff,—“ so Billy, bein’ 
fain to hev a wench who willun’t look at him, an’ 
thinking she like as she hes a leaning my way—Billy 
cars behind a wall, heving seen me cross th’ moor wi’ 
a mate. We had a disputation, like, my mate an’ me, 
an’ to settle it I says, ‘ Now, lad,’ says I, ‘ we’ll niver 
come to owt by th’ rambling round o’ talk. Let’s toss 
a ha’penny, if th’ blessed King’s head comes uppermost, 
I’m reet—if downside up, I’m wrang. That war what 
I said, Parson; an’ t’other chap—” 

“ Sirs, this fellow—” began Billy Puff. 

“ Thee hod thy din, lad, till thy betters hev done,” 
proceeded Tim, with a queer air of dignity which long 
acquaintance with the Squire had lent him. “ So we 
tossed, Parson, me an’ my mate, an’ th’ coin came King 
uppermost, an’ I war reet, which I war weel aware of. 
Then out comes this Billy Puff, who had better hev 
been hearkening to thy sermon, Parson, as I’ve been 
doing.” 

“Yes, yes,” chuckled the Parson; “it is long since 
I had you for a listener.” 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 193 

“As I war saying, he’d better hev been hearkening 
to ye, Parson—an’ ye hev a way wi’ preaching—i’stead 
o’ breaking th’ Sabbath by sich mouse-hole tricks as 
hiding behind walls. Well, howsiver, Billy comes out 
just as we’d settled our disputation. ‘ In th’ King’s 
name! ’ he says. An’ I says, ‘ Ay, by th’ King’s name 
I war reet i’ this disputation.’ ‘ Come thee to th’ 
stocks, rascal! ’ says Billy, puffing out his cheeks. 

‘ Weel, happen I may when I’ve nowt better to do,’ 
says I, an’ starts to run, being a littlish sort o’ chap by 
th’ side o’ girt Billy. An’ then I trips wi’ my foot i’ 
a worrity clump o’ ling, an’ Billy sits fair a-top o’ me; 
an’ I’ve larned summat, Squire, this morn.” 

“ And what is that, Tim? ” asked the Squire, smiling 
in his stately fashion. 

A very rapid glance Tim gave the Squire, to see how 
he was taking all this; then, “ Why, ’at Billy Puff 
weighs twenty stone if he weighs a pund. He fair 
knocked th’ breath out on me—an’ all for settling a 
disputation by th’ help of His Majesty’s head.” 

“ Constable, what have you to say to this ? ” asked 
Parson Horrocks, still with the gravity that fitted him 
like his well-made coat of black. 

“ I’ve to say, Parson,” sputtered Billy Puff, who saw 
his triumph fading,—“ I’ve to say ’at Tim o’ Tab’s 
is a liar. He war gaming on th’ public moor, contrary 
to the laws o’ this realm as by King and Parliament 
established. I did my duty by him, an’ catched him 
after long trouble, an’ set him i’ th’ stocks to be a warn¬ 
ing to all and sundry evil-minded persons who—” 


i 9 4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ And what is the term of his imprisonment?” put 
in Squire Cunliffe, who was well acquainted with the 
constable’s phrases. 

“ Squire, it is at the constable’s discretion, according 
to the laws of this realm as by King—” 

“ Just so, just so,” murmured the Parson, with an¬ 
other sly poke at Tim’s ribs; “but what is the con¬ 
stable’s discretion ? This rascal looks sadly heated and 
athirst; has he not suffered enough? ” 

“Nay, nay! Until one of the clock he must bide 
there, since I, the constable of this parish, hev set him 
theer for that length of time. Th’ church-goers an’ 
th’ chapel-goers—God save these last, Parson, for mis¬ 
guided sinners, though some do say as they’re Chris¬ 
tians like ourselns—all th’ folk mun see Tim o’ Tab’s 
i’ his shame, an’ despise him, an’ go their ways wi’ a 
warning.” 

“ Well, Tim, it is a sorry Sabbath occupation for a 
man—this tossing half-pence for greed of gain,” said 
Parson Horrocks. “ Think on your sins, and sweat a 
little of the wickedness out of you, and then—” 

“Ay, Parson?” queried Tim innocently. 

“ Come to me at the Bull Tavern, where I will talk 
to you for the good of your erring soul.” 

“ An’ thank’ee! ” responded the rascal with alacrity; 
for the Parson had more than once cared for his soul’s 
welfare at the Bull hostelry. 

“Where is my daughter?” interposed the Squire. 
“ It is time we were getting to horse. Ah, there she 
comes, the bonnie truant.” 

He was looking up the churchyard path, and his 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 195 

eyes, as they dwelt on Barbara, were full of a frank 
pride that was not ashamed to show itself to all the 
world. Yet his face, as he turned again to Tim o’ 
Tab’s, grew clouded, and he sighed impatiently, and 
he left Barbara to follow him at her leisure into the 
Bull. 

“ What, Tim! ” cried Barbara, stopping at a yard’s 
distance from him. 

Mr. Bancroft of the Heights was at her side, but 
now he fell back a pace or two, and wondered that 
this dainty girl should stoop to speech with a common 
ruffian in the stocks. Royd, just coming through the 
gate, saw the younger man’s withdrawal, and a look 
of dry humour crossed his face, as he thought how true 
the action was to Bancroft’s character; this constant 
fear of soiling clothes and manners by contact with the 
rougher sort was the penalty, indeed, which Dick Ban¬ 
croft had to pay for that little unnamed something 
in which he fell short of true gentility. Royd had not 
come forward at all this morning—had only bowed 
with a coldness almost boorish—while Barbara was 
greeting friends and neighbours in the churchyard, but 
now that he saw her face, no longer self-possessed and 
mistress of them all, but full of her old childish grief 
for suffering, and anger against those who hurt her 
favourites, he joined her as naturally as if her gown 
were still a full six inches shorter. 

“ Tim, you’re the best comber in the parish,” he 
laughed. “ What are you doing here?” 

“ Combing my thoughts out, maister, an’ thinking 
what a feather-headed chap I am when all’s said. Nay, 


196 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


I cannot keep out o’ trouble someway, though I’ve 
promised Squire times without number ’at I’d male a 
new beginning, like.” 

The constable, meanwhile, was looking on with a 
face of blank dismay. Whoever had come and gone 
this morning, it had been the same—Tabitha Hirst, 
the Parson, the Squire, they had all condoled with the 
culprit for suffering unmerited hardship. He had 
laboured so long and strenuously to bring this notori¬ 
ous breaker of the laws to justice, and now for the 
second time he was the centre of the gentlefolk’s atten¬ 
tion, while he, the trusty servant of the Crown, was 
left in the cold background of their displeasure. He 
might have felt the situation less keenly, perhaps, had 
he known how little at his ease Tim was feeling at the 
moment; for little Barbara, in her high-waisted gown 
and silken hose and silver-buckled slippers, troubled 
him sorely with a sense of his own unworthiness. His 
coat smelt rabbity, he knew; his beard was of six days’ 
growth; he could not even shuffle his feet about to ease 
his diffidence.” 

Barbara, however, was bent on brushing all such 
qualms aside. “ It is a shame, Tim, to keep you here 
on such a summer’s morning,” she cried, caressing the 
head which Grip had reached up to her hand. “ So 
you’re here, Grip, keeping the poor fellow company? 
Well, then, I’ll not say anything about you leaving 
church before the time. No, boy, no! You must not 
lick my hand; you’ll spoil a pretty pair of gloves.” 

“ He’s a staunch un, is Grip—niver cares a rush 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 197 

whether a friend’s up or down/’ murmured Tim, with 
a look at Barbara that in itself was flattery. 

“Tell me about it, Tim. What do they pretend 
you’ve done? ” went on Barbara, with the same mixture 
of laughter and childish gravity which had drawn Royd 
to her side. 

Tim o’ Tab’s, thus encouraged, plucked up heart, 
and shot a glance of triumph at the constable, and re¬ 
peated his former story with such additions as a 
fertile fancy suggested; and Royd, a quiet spectator of 
the scene, smiled broadly when he saw how seriously 
Tim’s tale was being accepted. Barbara’s first impulse 
was to turn upon the constable and upbraid him for his 
tyranny; but a better plan suggested itself, and, in¬ 
stead, she tripped across to Billy Puff and in her softest 
tones she told him how shrewd he must have been to 
capture so slippery a defaulter. The constable grew 
larger in the bulk, and red with pride; he felt that his 
hour, if late, had really come at last. Then Barbara 
was anxious to learn how the stocks were fastened. 

“ Why, wi’ a lock an’ key, mistress, wi’ a lock an 
key, for sure,” he answered, with fatherly condescen¬ 
sion. 

“ Ah—might I see the key, constable? ” 

“ Well, there’s nowt agen th’ law, I tak it, seeing th’ 
key. Here ’tis, mistress.” 

She took it in her hand and played with it for 
awhile. “ It looks a very rusty key,” she said demurely; 
“ I fear it will never open the stocks again, constable.” 

“ Eh, but it will! ” cried the other, smiling at her 


198 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


artlessness. “ Why, ye could oppen it yourseln, mis¬ 
tress, though ye’ve fingers slim as hezel-twigs.” 

“ Do you think I could? Shall I try, constable, just 
to prove that you are right ? ” 

He scratched his head perplexedly; and Barbara, 
not staying till his doubts were settled, slipped the key 
into the lock and turned it. Then she set both hands 
to the upper beam, but found it over-heavy for her 
strength. 

“ Stephen, will you not help me to lift it? ” she cried, 
glancing round at him. 

“ Nay, nay!” stammered Billy Puff, realising what 
she had in mind. “ I said till one o’ th’ clock; an’ what 
I says, th’ law says; an’ to break th’ law is a weighty 
offence agen this realm, as by King and Parliament 
ordained.” 

“ But then, constable,” said the little lady, in a voice 
of soft decision, “ Tim, here, is so very hot and thirsty, 
and your sentence was too long.” 

Bancroft of the Heights stood moodily aside; he did 
not care to take any part in rescuing such as Tim o’ 
Tab’s, but on the other hand he resented that Royd 
should be appealed to, not himself. 

Royd’s eyes met Barbara’s as he stooped to lift the 
heavy cross-beam. Something of his dreams of the 
last few days was in his glance, and Barbara, after the 
first silent scrutiny, could not meet it. She had sur¬ 
prised a live human heart in the mill-master—had 
surprised it during that quick and masterful glance of 
possession—and she could not credit that he, too, had 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 199 


instincts which lay deeper than the passion to amass 
a fortune. 

Tim was free by this time, and after he had thanked 
them in his own light, half-jesting way—thanks which 
neither of his rescuers heard—he moved away to ease 
his cramped limbs by walking up and down the square. 
A moment since Royd had been content to see Barbara 
as a child again, and he had laughed to see the Squire’s 
daughter and the poacher in league against the con¬ 
stable; but that was gone now. He did not see the 
stocks, nor the grey front of the tavern, nor Bancroft’s 
look of jealousy. He saw only Barbara,—Barbara, 
who was no child at all, but the woman whom he loved, 
and whom he needed. 

“ You have shunned me lately, Barbara,” he said, 
with a new note in his voice, as if in some way he had 
earned the right to accuse her. 

She wished to fight against the tone, but its com¬ 
pulsion carried her with it. “ You have shunned 
Wynyates, Stephen, for more months than I care to 
count,” she faltered. 

“ Yes—for I knew how trade was dulling me.” 

“ It must have dulled you—to make you think—to 
make you think that you could find less than a welcome 
with old friends.” 

Again their eyes met. “ Babs, you are not changed, 
then ? ” he said, as if the thought had escaped him 
unawares. 

She turned sharply away and did not answer him. 
Yes, she was changed! But Stephen must never in 


200 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


this world be told how much, and in what way the 
change had come. Her cheeks burned as she recalled, 
with cruel minuteness, every detail of that far-off night, 
when she had sung by candle-light the ballads that 
Royd loved, and afterwards had watched the moon¬ 
light filter through her chamber-window and let it 
read her own heart’s nakedness. 

“ It is time we set off home. I wish you could find 
father for me, Stephen,” she said, after a long silence. 
And her voice was colder even than she willed it should 
be. 

Royd was master of himself in all that had no 
concern with Barbara. He had the cool judgment, the 
sanguine reliance upon self, which carried him forward 
through the mass of his more shiftless fellows; but in 
this one relation of his life he was as water when the 
wind blows on it. A moment since, and he was ripe 
to claim her there and then; her very coldness was 
proof that she knew her weakness and his strength— 
and yet he read it all amiss. Without his knowing it, 
his manner fell into the hard, set groove that Barbara 
knew; he was the mill-master again, and Bancroft of 
the Heights, waiting impatiently till he could claim a 
word with Barbara, had no inkling how recklessly his 
rival had just played into his hands. 

The Squire and Parson Horrocks, as it chanced, had 
just concluded a ceremony as time-honoured as the 
church-going itself. After leaving Tim o’ Tab’s, they 
had stopped on the threshold of the Bull, as they had 
done these scores of Sundays past. 

“ Parson,” said Squire Cunliffe, “ I must wait until 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 201 


my horse is saddled. Will you step inside with me 
and crack a bottle for the good of the old house? ” 

“ Squire,” answered the Parson, according to old 
usage, “ it is early in the day for strong liquor; yet I 
have preached longer than my wont, and I confess to a 
certain dryness of the throat.” 

Then there was the usual grave dispute of courtesy, 
and each stood trying to bow the other through the 
doorway; until at last the Parson, reminded of his 
cloth, went first, and murmured that the office, not the 
man, claimed precedence. Amid the hot new days, and 
the hot new restlessness that was seeking for it knew 
not what, these two stood rooted in the kindlier soil 
of eld; and they alone, it seemed, in a world of change, 
neither needed nor acknowledged any change. Life 
had been leisurely in their youth, with a stately flavour 
to its intercourse; it was not altered to them, now that 
they neared the threshold of old age. 

They moved down the passage, chatting as they 
went, and into the snug back-parlour that looked out 
upon the farmyard of the tavern. On the table stood a 
bottle, with the cork ready drawn, and the cobwebs 
on it blowing softly in the breeze that passed from open 
door to open window. Then the landlord bustled in, 
with three glasses in his hands; and his manner, no less 
than the surprising readiness of wine and glasses, sug¬ 
gested that in some way he had had premonition of 
the hospitality offered by the Squire a moment since 
at the tavern door. 

“ Well, Crabtree,” said Squire Cunliffe, as the land¬ 
lord filled his glass with a careful hand, “ how is that 


202 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


lusty last-born of thine? Naught amiss with him, 
eh ? ” 

“ Nay, Squire, nowt wrang wi’ him. He kicks an’ 
he crows, fair as if he could niver get through twirling 
Iris toes, an’ his feet, an’ his fat little hands. An’ 
how fares it wi’ Mistress Barbara?” 

“ Well, then as the little mistress is named—fill up 
a glass for thyself, Crabtree,” said the Squire, as he 
had said a hundred times on the like occasion. 

Crabtree, by a fortunate chance, had brought one 
glass too many, and he filled it with his weekly air of 
surprise at his guest’s condescension. The Squire lifted 
his wine to the light, and watched its brown and ruby 
colours mingle with the sunshine; and then he turned to 
his companions, and gave the toast. 

“ The little mistress! ” he said, with a world of 
tender reverence in his voice. 

“ God keep her,” muttered the Parson, and meant it 
as truly as any prayer he had uttered this Sabbath day. 

And again for the hundreth time, Parson Horrocks 
wondered why the Squire always kept his hands so 
scrupulously gloved—at such times as these, for in¬ 
stance, when other men, more foppish, would have 
doffed their gauntlets and been glad to do so. 

“ ’Tis fair outrageous o’ Billy Puff, this setting Tim 
o’ Tab’s i’ th’ stocks,” ventured Crabtree presently. 

“ Billy Puff is—ahem!—the silliest man in Marsh- 
cotes,” said Parson ITorrocks testily. 

“ Ay, sir, these fat men are by way o’ being fond, 
I’ve noticed. But to put Tim there! Why, axing 
your pardon, ’twould be a’most as bad to see Squire 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 203 


or Parson there. An’ tlT lad war sore athirst. I hed 
th’ tail o’ my eye on him, an’ I saw he war noan just 
easy, though he hed th’ laugh o’ Billy Puff ivery time 
it came to words. I hed a mind, once ower, to tak him 
a sup o’ summat, but it’s treason, they say, or summat 
o’ that mak, an’ Billy war hovering all about, when a 
decent-minded chap wod hev gone round th’ corner 
an’ winked for a two-three minutes.” 

“ Well, it will be long before the constable catches 
Tim again, I warrant,” laughed the Parson. “ Get 
ready a chop or two, Crabtree—or a slice of the joint, 
say—and as much old ale as a man can carry without 
detriment to his head. Tim o’ Tab’s has earned a 
square meal and a well-filled pewter pot.” 

“ Ye’ve getten a heart i’ your body, Parson, as weel 
as a head on your shoulders! ” said Crabtree, who 
rarely stooped to praise. 

“ Crabtree, was that my horse I heard just now? ” 
said the Squire, who still seemed ill-at-ease while Tim 
o’ Tab’s was the topic of discussion. 

“ I’ll run an’ see, sir.” 

The landlord returned presently to say that the horses 
stood ready saddled at the door; and the two friends 
went out together, to find Tim o’ Tab’s free of the 
stocks, and Billy Puff standing in the background, with 
a puzzled, foolish smile upon his face. 

“ It’s agen th’ law, I sadly fear,” the constable was 
saying. 

Parson Horrocks took in the situation at a glance. 
“ Constable,” he said, in his gravest manner, “ there is 
a weightier than King’s law in Marshcotes parish— 


204 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


and that is the will of Mistress Barbara Cunliffe. Let 
the prisoner go free.” 

“Well, Parson, I hev my doubts; but if ye say it’s 
lawful, an’ according to tlT constitution o’ this realm, 
as—•” 

“ It is,” said the Parson, with conviction. “ The 
King himself would not deny it if he were here to see 
Mistress Barbara.” 

This with a bow that might well have shamed a 
younger man; for chivalry, like sound wine, takes on 
with age a subtler fragrance, and Parson Horrocks 
spent a good third of his life in devotion to Barbara’s 
service. 

“ From the vanity of this wicked world, sir, you will 
never, I fear, deliver me,” laughed Barbara, as she set 
her slippered foot in the Parson’s hand. 

Royd and Bancroft stood and watched her mount 
pillion-fashion behind her father; and there was little 
to choose between them, so far as moodiness of face 
went. Royd was thinking of the girl’s sudden cold¬ 
ness a while since, and Bancroft was asking himself 
why this old Parson should always claim the right to 
lift Barbara to the saddle, just because he had done it 
ever since she was a child.” 

“ I had better get me back to trade,” muttered Royd. 

“ The Parson’s an old fogey; it is time that younger 
men stepped in,” growled Bancroft of the Heights. 

“Will you ride back to dinner with us, Stephen?” 
said the Squire, as he gathered the reins in his hand. 

Barbara sent a glance to bear her father’s invitation 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 205 

company,—a shy glance, which she had not meant to 
give,—and Royd wavered for a moment. 

“ I am sorry, sir, but I am pledged to-day,” he 
answered brusquely, after a pause that was evident 
both to Barbara and to his rival. 

The Squire, however, seemed more relieved than 
otherwise by the refusal. He turned to Bancroft, who 
was waiting for his horse and smacking his whip 
against his booted leg. 

“ Tuesday is my daughter’s birthday,” he said; “ you 
sup with us that day ? ” 

“You are kind enough to suggest it, sir.” 

Barbara caught a glance of understanding that 
passed between Bancroft and her father, and she won¬ 
dered at it—wondered, too, why old custom should be 
so forgotten that Stephen had been invited for to-day, 
not for her birthday-night. It was while her thoughts 
were bent on this, and while her father was ending 
those farewells which were never less than leisurely 
upon a kirk-going morn, that there seemed to come a 
sudden chill amid the happy sunlight of the day—a 
sudden chill, and with it a queer note in the wind as 
it rose and whistled down between the graves, and 
dropped again as quickly as it came. The sense of 
cold was gone in the same moment; the sun was as 
warm as ever, the breeze as playful; yet Barbara’s face 
was white, for she had learned from childhood to link 
this rarely-heard, peculiar sadness of the wind with 
an old superstition of her house. It was the note which 
Lavrock of the Herders Inn had heard in the winter- 


206 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


time, the note of which he had told Royd when the 
master-weaver came to buy his wool; and Barbara 
doubted its meaning as little as he did. Royd stood 
almost at her elbow, and she saw by his face that he 
too had noticed what the others had let go by un¬ 
heeded. 

“ Did you hear the old Squire hunting, Stephen ? ” 
she whispered. 

“ I heard the west wind piping,” he answered gruffly. 
And she knew from his tone that now, at last, he too 
had felt the touch of old superstition. But she did not 
know that it was his growing love for her that had 
awakened chords of dread, long over-laid by the bustle 
and the workaday routine of mill-life; nor could she 
guess that he read signs of a disaster soon to come 
into the Squire’s invitation to Bancroft of the Heights. 

One last look Barbara gave him—of inquiry, almost 
of entreaty—and then she and her father were canter¬ 
ing toward the moors along the narrow silent street. 

Royd was left facing Bancroft of the Heights, while 
the ostler, holding their horses ready bridled, wondered 
why they stood in such evident embarrassment instead 
of getting to saddle. Each was measuring the other 
with a glance that had in it as little courtesy as kindli¬ 
ness. Bancroft was thinking of all that supper invita¬ 
tion meant, of Barbara’s riches and her beauty; Royd 
was trying to forget the wind’s note lately heard among 
the gravestones, and telling himself that he held this 
well-groomed ruffler’s pride in the hollow of his hands. 
For a long moment their scrutiny lasted; and then they 
turned without a word and sought their horses. 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 207 


The Squire and Barbara were riding meanwhile with 
a silence no less deep between them. 

“What ails you, child?” he asked abruptly, when 
Ling Crag village lay behind them and still Barbara 
had not spoken. 

It was not natural to Barbara to hide anything, and 
the words came clumsily. “ I ? Why, nothing, father. 
I was—was thinking of poor Tim, who never did wrong 
to anyone, being set there in the stocks. He—he is 
almost one of the Cunliffe family, is he not? seeing 
how much he comes into our life at Wynyates.” 

The Squire in turn was silent for awhile. Then, 
“ Well, as to that,” he answered, in a voice that was 
as little natural as Barbara’s own, “ as to that, he does 
sad harm, I fancy, to the game upon my land.” 

“ No, not yours,” she interposed, really solicitous 
now for Tim’s good character. “You know, father, 
that Tim would never take a blade of grass that was 
reared on the Hall land.” 

“ Well, it may be so—it may be so. Perhaps it is 
only the game of other men that Tim is partial to.” 

There was a sort of compunction in the Squire’s tone, 
as if it went against the grain to wrong the ne’er-do- 
weel by a single untrue word. 

“ And then he is so much better than they make him 
out to be. You know, father, what Stephen says about 
the combed wool that he takes to the mill each week. 
If he were really idle, as folk say he is, how could he 
comb the wool? ” 

The Squire pulled his nag into a less slumberous 
pace. “ Ay, there is something in that,” he said slowly. 


208 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Tim, though, tells the villagers that the brownies 
comb it for him while he is busy in the fields o’ 
nights.” 

“ That is Tim’s jest. He would make a jest of any¬ 
thing in the world—himself and his own good qualities 
first of all.” 

“ Maybe, maybe. I confess to a weak-knee’d fond¬ 
ness for Tim, myself. Barbara, have you noticed 
Stephen Royd of late ? ” 

Barbara hid her head a little, though she was secure 
behind the Squire’s broad back. “ Why should I have 
noticed him, father? He seems out of humour with 
his friends, does he not ? ” 

“How like a maid! First to know nothing; then, 
all in a breath, to hit the right nail on the head. He 
does seem out of humour, and it troubles me. Have I 
said too much against this cursed wool-trade, think 
you ? He was inclined to plead a prior promise to-day, 
I fancied, where none existed.” 

“ I sometimes think,” she began, and was so long in 
finishing that the Squire looked round impatiently. 

“ What do you think, child ? ” he asked. 

“ That Stephen hates all trade as much as you do, 
and that you fret him now and then because he feels 
your enmity to it is true—” 

“ God forbid! I would fret no man who shared my 
hospitality—and Stephen least of all, though nowa¬ 
days he seems to have no thought for anything but 
wool. Have I really hurt him, think you, Barbara?” 

“ And if you have?” said Barbara, with a sudden 
change of front. “ Why should he think that all the 


HOW THE WIND GREW SORROWFUL 209 


world approves of him? We are almost home* father; 
I wonder, are we late for dinner?” 

Tim o’ Tab’s was at the moment seated in the kitchen 
of the Bull; nor did he find much pity for himself, 
whatever compassion little Barbara was feeling for 
him. 

“ Th’ Parson preaches a rare sermon—o’ hot roast 
beef an’ mellow ale,” said Tim o’ Tab’s to Crabtree of 
the Bull, as he finished a liberal helping. 

“ Th’ Parson, I’d hev ye knaw,” answered Crabtree 
oracularly, “ th’ Parson is th’ best man i’ Marshcotes— 
after Squire an’ Mistress Barbara.” 

“ Ay,” said Tim, with a sharp glance at the landlord, 
“ after Squire an’ th’ little mistress. An’ if all were 
knawn about th’ Squire that is to be knawn—” 

“ Well? ” asked Crabtree, pricking up his ears in his 
slow way. 

“ Ye’d knaw summat. Thank ye, I’ll tak a slice o’ 
th’ puddin’—nobbut a middling slice, mind ye, for I’ve 
well-nigh etten enough.” 

Tim fell silent then; for his thoughts kept wander¬ 
ing to old Squire Cunliffe. 

“ He mun hev his bottle o’ port,” he was saying to 
himself; “ay, he war niver one to show less nor his 
own proud self when he’s abroad. What th’ price o’ 
a bottle is, I dunnot knaw; but he’ll hev it o’ th’ best, 
that’s sartin sure, an’ th’ half of a silver crown willun’t 
pay for’t. To think o’ that, an’ him— Nay, I willun’t 
think on’t! I can do no gooid, an’ I shall nobbut spoil 
rare vittals if I go sorrowing ower the troubles of other 
folk!” 


CHAPTER XI 


UNREST 

T HE Friendly Inn at Ling Crag was doing a 
brisk trade this morning; for it was Monday, 
and the long row of wool-packs that lined the 
tavern-front would have told what day it was with as 
much certainty as the almanac. If old habit went for 
anything, moreover, a native could have foretold that 
the packs would stay there until late afternoon. It was, 
indeed, the weekly Parliament of the village, and there 
were few among the combers who failed to stop for 
glasses at the Friendly after taking their combings to 
the mill and returning with the next week’s wool. The 
village, quiet for six days out of the seven, took on 
a holiday aspect at such times, and while the men dis¬ 
cussed their weighty rustic politics within doors, the 
maids and matrons of lung Crag foregathered round 
about their cottage-doors, and robbed the absent of 
their good repute, and told what weddings might be 
heard of soon. 

There was every type of face in the crowded tap- 
room—the pinched features of the shiftless father of 
twelve, who had never kept his threshold to himself, 
as the saying is, but who had always seen want staring 
at him from the doorway—the round, red face of the 
man to whom work and victuals came with equal relish 
210 


UNREST 


21 I 


—the sly face of the poacher, with that alert look in 
the eyes which in itself was enough to convict him of 
the double trade. Outwardly all was as usual; the ale 
was dwindling in the tavern barrels, the sun was creep¬ 
ing westward behind the village chimney-stacks, and 
tongues were tripping on a looser rein than they had 
done awhile since; yet in some undefined way there 
was a quieter air, as of restraint, over the knot of men. 
And presently a silence fell on them, and each man 
looked at his neighbour, and the shiftless sort began 
to scrape their boots among the sodden heaps of saw¬ 
dust on the floor. A great, blunt-headed fellow—Eli 
Shackleton by name—sat in the window-niche; and he 
it was who first broke the silence. 

“ Well? ” he said, in a deep voice. 

That was all; but the monosyllable suggested a 
world of surmise, expectation, talk, and it loosed men’s 
tongues. 

“ Ay, ye may weel axe,” cried one of the crowd. 
“ Times show no signs o’ bettering, an’ th’ only chaps 
on th’ moorside who can addle ony brass are th’ 
maister-weavers.” 

“ An’ they addle too mich, an’ it’s us as fills their 
pockets,” put in Eli Shackleton. “ Eh, lads, but we’re 
bonnie foods to do’t.” 

“ Stuff an’ nonsense! ” cried Tim o’ Tab’s, who had 
slipped quietly in among them just as Shackleton gave 
out his pregnant “ Well? ” 

“ Oh, it’s ye, Tim, is’t? ” said Shackleton, trying to 
frown him down. “ Well, we know thy tale, lad, an* 
we like as we doan’t reckon as mich on’t as we did.” 


212 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ That nobbut shows ye’ve stuffed more feathers into 
your silly heads,” Tim answered pleasantly. “ See ye, 
now—ye’re all Maister Royd’s hands here this mom? 
Well, ye should think shame to grudge him, or ony like 
him, th’ brass he’s warked for—ay, an’ warked honest. 
If ye’d belanged to Booth o’ Goit Miln, now—” 

“ They’re birds o’ a feather, an’ thick as thieves,” 
asserted Shackleton, bringing his great fist down upon 
the window-ledge with a blow that set the geraniums, 
the fuchsias, and the mauve petunias all rattling in their 
pots. “ What, didn’t I see ’em yestermorn—Booth an’ 
Stephen Royd—wi’ their heads shoved close together? 
They were bartering, I reckon—bartering ower what 
we addle for ’em, wi’ our sweat an’ our empty bellies, 
an’ our childer crying for bread.” 

He had touched the true note there—the note which 
no set oratory could have sounded. A hoarse murmur 
greeted him, a murmur that had as little articulate form 
in it, and as deep a meaning, as the growl of hunger- 
driven brutes. By the hearth stood a little, sallow man, 
with restless eyes and the sort of face that is thin to 
wedge itself into other people’s business; he was the 
accredited mouthpiece of the Bradford strikers, and had 
come up here with plain orders, and a firm resolve that 
he would persuade the Ling Crag folk to join them; 
but even he kept silence, for he saw that the yeast of 
discontent was fairly brewing now, and that Eli 
Shackleton must be the leader for the nonce of men 
who acknowledged few prophets within the boundaries 
of their parish, but none outside it. 

The murmurs grew articulate at last; tales of want, 


UNREST 


213 


tales of cruelty, tales of stark lewdness in the factories, 
were told in the blunt, unstudied words of fact. And 
Stephen Royd, now that their blood was up and their 
reason in abeyance, was made to bear the brunt of all; 
cruelty and want, the sobbing of the little children and 
the tearless desperation of the women—the mill-mas¬ 
ters stood at the head and front of all these matters, 
with the overlookers, whip in hand beside them. There 
could be no distinction now; Royd’s gentler dealings 
were forgotten—he was a master; he had shared the 
masters’ past prosperity; he must share with them in 
what the future held. 

The sallow man on the hearth looked on, and nodded 
quietly as he saw these stolid folk grow quick with 
passion. They had been slow—ay, but they would be 
sure if once they let the strike-fever lay a firm hold on 
them. And by and by, when he judged that it was 
time, he put a question to them—not with his usual 
flow of words, his thunder of denunciation and restless 
cry for action, but in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone that 
witnessed to his knowledge of men’s hearts. 

“ So ye’ll strike, friends? ” he said. 

“No!” cried Tim o’ Tab’s, true to the last to 
Stephen Royd. 

“ Ay, will we! ” roared Eli Shackleton. 

And, “ Ay, will we! ” came the answering shout. 
And even Tim o’ Tab’s despaired as he heard the under¬ 
lying depth and fury of that shout; it would need a 
miracle now, he told himself, to avert what Royd had 
worked so pluckily and so untiringly to avoid. 

Shackleton, glancing at the window, gave a low 


214 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


laugh, and the shouting died down as one and all fol¬ 
lowed the direction of his finger. 

“ What is’t, Eli ? ” they cried. 

“ It’s tlT overlooker down at Royd’s miln,” said 
Shackleton grimly. “ He’s chosen an unchancy road 
this Monday mornin’, I’m thinking.” 

They understood him; passion had knit them close 
together for the moment, and their minds, usually so 
tardy of approach, ran together, and met, and were as 
one. In a moment half a dozen of them had run out 
into the road; in another they were back again, with 
the overlooker struggling in their grasp. It was unjust 
enough, as it chanced; no whip was ever used in Hazel 
Mill, and Royd had dismissed overlooker after over¬ 
looker for cruelties privily committed, until at last he 
had found one who was able to err upon the side of 
gentleness. It was unjust, and the victim, as he strug¬ 
gled with his captors, kept asking what he had done 
to merit such harsh treatment; but his face was white 
as he glanced from one to another of the combers— 
for he knew that, like Royd himself, he was going to 
suffer for the shortcomings, not of himself, but of his 
class. 

“ Theer’s a feather-bed, I’ll warrant, up aboon- 
stairs,” said Eli Shackleton quietly; “ an’ theer’s tar 
to be had for the axing somewhere.” 

A laugh went up—no kindly laugh, but one that had 
a sting in it, as of a blow. A man pushed forward 
through the press, and set his hand about the over¬ 
looker’s throat; and he had no laugh upon his lips, for 


UNREST 


215 


he had lately lost a daughter at a factory-master’s 
hands. 

“ Gi’e me my lass again! ” he cried. “ Gi’e me my 
lass again!—she ligs i’ Sorrowful Water, drowned for 
shame—” 

They pulled him off; for they had not come to the 
pitch of murder yet, and a glance at the comber’s face 
was enough to show his purpose—enough to show, too, 
what streams of bitterness, of squalor and despair, had 
been running high and higher still between their banks 
during these spring weeks of sun and western winds 
and growing meadow-grass. The devil was loose 
among them now; murder would show a face more 
comely by and by, and meanwhile they were ready for 
any sort of lighter cruelty. Three big fellows had al¬ 
ready tugged a bedding from the upstairs room, and 
were slitting the seams with their clasp-knives; the 
feathers were already blowing hither and thither in the 
draught; and the overlooker had his hands across his 
eyes, for he had listened more than once to talk of what 
this tarring and feathering meant to the victim—this 
rough-and-ready punishment which, if it moved the by¬ 
standers to mirth, was a very real torture to the victim. 
Tar would be forthcoming soon—the landlord said 
there was a barrel in his yard—and only Tim o’ Tab’s 
had any plea to offer for the overlooker. 

“ Let him go, ye foods! Bide till ye get hod o’ 
Booth 0’ Goit Miln, an’ theer’ll be a bit o’ sense in’t,” 
he cried. “ What’s th’ use o’ making a grey gander 
out o’ a honest man ? ” 


2 l6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


It was rarely that the combers would not let this 
shrewd and happy-go-lucky Tim point them to the light 
side of any matter; he had, moreover, the reputation 
of being a “ luck-bringer,” and they attached a weight 
to his advice which was not always to be measured by 
its merits; but to-day they were past all that, and they 
turned with a snarl on Tim. 

“ Best keep thy tongue fro’ wagging till we’ve done 
what mun be done,” said Shackleton roughly. “ This 
chap stands for Stephen Royd, an’ for Booth o’ Goit 
Miln, an’ he’s getten to pay a tidy price.” 

“ An’ happen we’ll leet on Royd hisseln afore so 
varry long,” put in another. 

“ Ay, an’ what then?” retorted Tim undauntedly. 
“ Begow, I’d weel like to be theer—for I’ve seed Mais- 
ter Royd stand up to his man, an’ it’s a seet that warms 
your belly.” 

Royd, as it chanced, was riding up from Marshcotes 
at the moment on business that was waiting for him 
at Goit Mill; and his thoughts, like the combers’, were 
busy with the ever-present question of the strike. Not 
long since he had told Parson Horrocks that the danger 
was nearly over-past; but the Bradford men, being out 
of work themselves, had found more time of late to 
cross to Marshcotes and Ling Crag; they had talked, 
argued, threatened; and now the reports which Tim o’ 
Tab’s brought to Hazel Mill, as to the temper of the 
workmen, grew uglier day by day. Anxiety was writ¬ 
ten plainly on the master-weaver’s face as he turned 
the corner of the hill and saw the swarthy Ling Crag 
houses reaching sky-wards; obstinacy, too, and a cer- 


UNREST 


217 


tain relish for the very difficulties which threatened 
his prosperity. For this strike meant more to him than 
any of his well or evil-wishers guessed; it meant money, 
and with money the freedom to leave trade for ever, 
the power to give his land-love what it craved. For, 
when he left business for good and came back to the 
old home, he meant to come with capital; there must be 
no parsimony, no need to reckon up the cost of bring¬ 
ing back his fields to the sweetness and the savour they 
had lost during the shiftless reign of the Bancrofts, 
father and son. None knew better than Stephen Royd 
what an outlay this would mean; and again he told 
himself, as he topped the rise and trotted through the 
Ling Crag street, that there must be no strike at Hazel 
Mill. He checked his horse as he neared the Friendly 
Inn and saw the wool-packs, row on row, that lined the 
front. It was past noon now, and the combers must 
have been here since the early morning; and Royd 
knew, as well as if he stood within the bar and listened 
to them, that they were neither gossiping nor jesting, 
but talking of the strike. Then it was borne in on him 
that the crisis had come, that he must stand or fall by 
the issue of this tap-room meeting; and he did not 
mean to wait idly until these folk should come to their 
decision. With the promptness that had stood him in 
good stead at many a dangerous corner of the trade- 
road, he slipped from the saddle, tied his bridle to the 
ring, and went indoors. There were wilful men among 
the combers, and men who upon due provocation could 
set their faces to a flint-like hardness; but the most 
wilful of all the tavern’s guests that day, and the hard- 


21 8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


est of face, was the master-weaver, whose eyes saw 
only that long low house upon the hill which was to 
be the prize of this unlooked-for meeting. 

They had piled the feathers into a heap by now, and 
Eli Shackleton, as he twisted the overlooker round and 
about in his hairy hands, was calling loudly for the tar, 
and bidding the bystanders help him to get off the 
victim’s clothes. They turned as Royd came through 
the open door, and he read at a glance that their 
temper was uglier than he had looked for; yester¬ 
day, after morning service, they had scowled and 
muttered at him in the Marshcotes graveyard; but 
not as openly as now, nor with such heart in it. He 
watched them steadily for awhile, and Tim’s patch-eyed 
terrier, always alive to a sense of his own paramount 
importance, came up to lick his hand. Tim himself 
said nothing, but there was a quiet look of humour in 
his face as he saw Royd’s eyes go round from one to 
another of the group, and rest at last upon Eli Shackle- 
ton and the frightened overlooker 

“ What do you want with my overlooker, Shackle- 
ton? I sent him to Ling Crag on business that won’t 
wait,” said Royd. 

“ We’re bahn to gi’e him a taste of combers’ over¬ 
looking; t’other business mun wait, I reckon,” answered 
Shackleton. 

Tim, still watching with keen zest, could see the old 
Royd stuff come clear and crisp through the mask 
which the master-weaver had laboured to fashion for 
himself—could see his master’s muscles stiffen, and 


UNREST 


219 


hear the lusty ring to which his voice had long been 
stranger. 

“ Take your hands off! ” Royd commanded. 

“ Begow, but they wanted th’ maister here! ” 
chuckled Tim. “ An’ now they’ve getten him—an’ 
we shall see summat, or I war niver born at Benty 
Farm.” 

“ It’s ower late,” said Eli Shackleton, with a frank 
stare of defiance at Royd; “a week sin’ we mud hev 
hearkened to your masterful ways, Royd o’ Hazel Miln 
—but that’s owered wi’ for gooid an’ all.” 

Royd put the crowd aside with his right hand and 
his left, and stood in front of Shackleton. “ Take your 
hands off! ” he repeated. 

“ Not for ye; nay, I reckon not for ye.” 

Big men both, and men of their hands, they stood 
for a moment eye to eye; and then Royd shot out his 
fist, and caught the comber on the chin and dropped 
him. 

“ Clean an’ sweet,” murmured Tim o’ Tab’s approv¬ 
ingly. “ I’ve a fancy th’ maister lies ta’en th’ best way 
to settle a strike, though he doesn’t knaw it, happen.” 

Shackleton lay where lie had fallen, and at another 
time Royd might well have feared for the effect of his 
too well-directed blow; but he cared for nothing at the 
moment, except the knowledge that his combers stood 
all together here, and that he had his chance to talk to 
them. They were not growling now, nor eyeing him 
askance; interest in a fair and equal fight had taken 
them unawares, and a low cry of applause had gone up 


220 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


when Royd showed himself the master in more than 
name. Not long since Eli Shackleton had spoken of 
their wrongs, and he had struck a deep chord in every 
man of them; but Royd had touched a deeper. No 
logic, no persuasiveness, could have reached them with 
half the force that one quick blow, with nerve and 
muscle behind it, had effected; the argument was final 
to their minds, and the Bradford strikers might resign 
themselves to the knowdedge that Hazel Mill at least 
would still continue working. Royd did not know this, 
however, as he turned and looked steadily from man to 
man; he only wondered that the faces which a moment 
since had scowled at him should now be turned to him 
with respect, and almost with good-humour. 

Yes, he was one of them. He was rich, and they 
were poor; he was gently born, and the nameless air 
which land, and only land, can give a man raised a 
class-wall between himself and them; yet he was one 
of them, and never had he shown it as he did this 
morning, as he stood with his feet among the musty 
sawdust and the beer-stains, and measured their 
strength, and flung himself against them, will against 
stubborn will. The late fight was less than nothing to 
him—a bit of lad’s play interfering with grave business 
—and by this time he had forgotten the man who lay 
behind him, forgotten the overseer who, still sick from 
his late terror, was trying to stammer out his gratitude. 
This was the fight; and instinctively he squared his 
shoulders and put his right foot forward. 

“ I came in because I saw your wool-packs standing 


UNREST 


221 


at the door, and knew you were talking of the strike,” 
he said. 

“ Well, an' so we war,” admitted one. 

“ Fool’s talk, all of it. I can tell you—ay, word for 
word—what you were saying. First, that Stephen 
Royd was putting money in his pockets that should be 
feeding your children and your wives. How far would 
it go, and how long would it last, and where would you 
find work when you had beggared the very man who 
could provide it for you?” 

The man who had lost a daughter, drowned for 
shame in Sorrowful Water, was the only one to answer. 
“ Ye’re wifeless an’ childless, Royd o’ Hazel Miln, an’ 
ye cannot understand it. When ye’ve heard th’ childer 
—your own childer —come crying to your knee for 
bread, ye care nowt for who belangs th’ brass, an’ 
nowt for what’s to come at after, so ye can nobbut stop 
their crying for th’ one day an’ neet.” 

“ I’ve neither wife nor child,” said Royd, in a hard 
voice; “ and if I had, I’d keep them with my own hands 
and my own wits, and not go asking any charity, under 
the name of fair wages, from the masters who have 
earned their money.” 

The words were rough, and the rough folk who 
nodded half in approbation recognised that there was 
shrewd sense in them. Again the dead girl’s father 
was the only one to mutter; and Royd, on his part, 
could not guess how bitterly his words struck home in 
this one case. 

“ See you,” he went on, in a different voice, “ you 


222 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


think we masters like to see you starving; you think 
we could help it if we would. How can we, any more 
than we can help the cold winds at shearing time or 
hail when the corn is up? Bad times are bad times, 
and neither you nor I can alter them—except to make 
them worse by stopping labour altogether.” 

“Ye can gi’e a fair wage, an’ theer’ll be no work 
stopped,” put in Royd’s persistent adversary. 

“ When I get a fair price for my pieces—when times 
are good, that is—I share it with you. Come, lads, 
have I dealt well with you in times gone by? Have 
I lowered your wages even now when the pinch has 
come ? ” 

They had liked Royd, had even sung his praises, in 
old days; and now they were recalling this with greater 
and greater clearness. 

“ We’ve nowt agen ye that way,” said one slowly, 
“ but, maister, it fair sticks i’ our gizzards, an’ that’s 
truth, to think o’ our little uns i’ th’ factories, an’ to 
knaw what’s done theer, an’ yet to see ye swopping 
brass wi’ them that’s harder i’ th’ heart nor ye can 
understand.” 

“ Hiram Lee, ye do a bit of farming, if I remember, 
as well as combing,” said Royd drily. “ Well, when ye 
bargain for a beast, do ye go asking all about the man, 
who wants to buy,—if his heart is in the right place, 
and if he treats his wife and family fairly, and so 
forth?” 

“ Nay, begow! ’^chuckled Hiram Lee. “ I put my 
teeth into his brass, an’ I count it three times ower, 
an’ then, if it bites weel an’ counts fair—why, I button 


UNREST 


223 

a breeches’-pocket ower it, an’ thank th’ Lord for one 
more gooid bargain driven.” 

“ And so do I,” said Royd. 

He could have got nearer still to the hearts of all 
these folk, he could have told them, in good faith, that 
he was more intimate with their hardships and their 
sorrows than they guessed—that the crying of the 
children rang as loudly in his ears as in theirs—that 
he, too, was eager to see swept away all wrongs that 
could be righted—all wrongs, that is, which were of 
men’s making, and not due to those trade tides which 
were as shifting and as little to be resisted as the sea 
itself. He could have opened his mind to them on 
these matters, and have profited by such candour; but 
he would not stoop to it; he would not say one word 
that should turn their minds in any way against such 
brother-masters as Booth of Goit Mill. Booth, like 
himself, had to fight this battle of the looms, and he 
should fight it squarely, without side-thrusts from his 
rival. 

A silence fell between them; the men’s eyes were 
still fixed on Royd, and none noticed that Eli Shackle- 
ton had half-lifted himself from the floor, and was 
looking about him in a stunned, surprised way. 

“ Maister Royd, theer’s nobbut a hair ’twixt sense 
an’ fooilishness—but I fancy ye’re i’ th’ right this 
time,” said a comber, breaking the pause. 

The sallow man by the hearth, who until a few 
moments since had watched the unrest growing surely 
to a head, saw now that Royd was carrying his people 
with him. 


224 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ In the right, is he? ” he broke in angrily. “ Seems 
to me he’s giving you talk, and plenty of it—but 
what does it come to, men? He’ll give you nothing 
else—nothing to make bread and meat of—and it’s 
meat and bread you want, for your starving wives and 
your crying children.” 

He tried to touch the same chord in them that 
Shackleton had done; but it was too late for that. As 
for Royd, he was buoyant; the reins were in his hands, 
and he knew it; and the strained look left his face as 
he turned quickly round to answer this new adversary. 

“ I’m thinking I’ve heard of you,” he said. “ You 
come from Bradford, and you try to show Ling Crag 
folk how to manage our own affairs. You’re the only 
man in this room wLo isn’t Ling Crag born and bred 
—and the only one who wants to see us starve, masters 
and men together.” 

The combers growled approval; for again Royd had 
shown his knowledge of their tempers, and by ranging 
himself as a Ling Crag man, he had insensibly shut off 
the agitator from their sympathy. This man from Brad¬ 
ford who at the outset had shown himself a sympathiser 
with their grievances, was now a foreigner, and his 
least actions were to be looked on with suspicion. 

“ You’ve a tongue in your head,” said the stranger 
savagely, “ and you can turn these Ling Crag fellows 
round your finger, so it seems. But they’ll know one 
day, as I know now, how far you’re friendly to them. 
They’re workers, and I’m a worker, and your hand’s 
against us, Royd of Hazel Mill, however you try to 
soap us down with speech.” 


UNREST 


225 


One or two seemed moved by this last effort of the 
agitator’s; but Royd silenced him once for all, so far as 
Ling Crag was concerned. 

“You a worker! ” he cried. “ Did you ever lift your 
hand to comb or shuttle in your life? Not you. I 
know you, and I know your history; and if any man 
has wife or children starving, let him go see your house 
in Bradford. How do you live ? How do your children 
live? Better than I do myself. Times are hard, you 
say; then where does your money come from? We 
masters don’t feed you; you won’t work to feed your¬ 
self; how do you get money to provide wheaten bread, 
and meat twice a day, and clothes that are too good to 
work in ? ” 

He paused, but the stranger had no answer ready, 
nor would he meet Royd’s gaze. 

“How do you live, I ask?” went on the master- 
weaver. “ Why, on the alms of better workers than 
yourself; you’re a beggar, thriving on the discontent 
you rouse,—a fellow who creeps into honest houses, 
and whines about hard times, and gets well paid for it. 
You’ve had much to say of me in Ling Crag; well, if 
I lost every penny to-day, I could turn to the loom, or 
to the combing-pot, and earn my bread as well as any 
man who stands here. But could you? If there were 
no fools to listen to you, would you thrive or starve? ” 

“ He’d starve, begow! an’ I’m capped we niver 
saw it i’ that light,” cried a big voice from the win¬ 
dow. 

It was Eli Shackleton who spoke—Eli, who had re¬ 
covered, so it seemed, from the effects of a hard blow, 


226 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


and who was eyeing Royd with a look of mingled sour¬ 
ness and approval. 

“ What, you’re on your legs again ? ” laughed Royd, 
with a quick turn of the head. “ Do you bear me a 
grudge, Eli, or must we settle our quarrels by and by 
in some quiet spot? ” 

“ Nay, I bear no grudge. I war a bit of a fooil just 
now, I’m thinking; an’ ye’ve getten a fist as hard as a 
cobble-stone; an’ mebbe we’ll like each other noan tlT 
war, maister, for what’s owered wi’.” 

It was the upland spirit, and Royd wondered, now 
that he felt himself so much at home with all these 
old-time neighbours, that he could ever have doubted 
their friendship toward himself. Still, he had sunk his 
pride just now; he had stooped to argue and to plead, 
when both were foreign to his nature; and now the 
masterfulness leaped out again upon the sudden. 

“ I’ve said what I came to say, men,” he went on. 
“ You strike, and I close my mill for good, and there’ll 
be one less chance of labour in the parish afterwards; 
you don’t strike, and we shall weather through the 
storm together somehow. It rests with you to settle— 
but you’ve got to settle now and here. I’ll have no 
more talk, and shilly-shally, and unrest.” 

“ We want no more shilly-shally; we’re sick to death 
on’t,” said Eli Shackleton. 

“ Well, then, put up your hands like men, those of 
you who mean to strike, and I’ll thank you for your 
honesty.” 

No hand was raised, but they came forward one by 
one, and laid their knotty fists in Royd’s, and said they’d 


UNREST 


227 


work for him come dark times or come fair. He knew 
there would be no going back on that sort of promise; 
he had done his work here, and with characteristic 
distaste to loitering, he bade them all a curt farewell, 
and went out to carry on the business which had been 
so long delayed. 

“ Broach a barrel, landlord. These folk want all to 
drink to their good sense,” he said, as he went out 
along the passage. 

“ Bribery,” growled the sallow-faced agitator. 

“ Tha’rt wide o’ tlT mark theer, lad,” answered Eli 
Shackleton. “Ye cannot bribe at after a thing’s set¬ 
tled; an’ if Maister Royd had knawn no better nor to 
offer us ale at th’ first—we’d hev struck, I reckon, 
ivery man-jack on us.” 

Royd was in the saddle by this time, and was riding 
at the trot toward Goit Mill; and for the first time he 
realised how heavily this question of the strike had 
weighed on him—knew by the lightness of his spirits, 
and the lifting of that dull anxiety which had robbed 
the spring months of their savour. Again he looked 
with new eyes at the Heights gables and the Heights 
trees which showed upon the hill-slope opposite; he 
would have money now with which to feed the lands 
he loved, money to clothe them royally in green of 
meadow-grass and gold of the well-won corn; the 
mortgage was his, and greater wealth than ever his 
father had enjoyed would soon be his; meanwhile he 
could wait until such time as Bancroft’s follies ripened 
—could wait, and be content. 

So little like himself he was, that when he saw Billy 


228 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Puff come waddling up the hill, his face a fine full red 
and his cheeks expanding and contracting in the effort 
to get cool, Royd stopped his horse to throw a word of 
banter at the constable. 

“ Well met upon the road, constable,” he said. 
“ There’s need of you at the Friendly Inn, if all I 
hear be true.” 

Billy’s face brightened, for a tavern offered potent 
opportunities to an imagination that in other respects 
was none too keen. “ Oh, ay,” he answered. “ Well, 
I knaw my duty, Maister Royd, an’ I knaw th’ law, 
I hope, as weel as most. What’s agate up yonder, 
then ? ” 

“ Some brawl or other, so they tell me.” 

“ This needs considering, like,” said Billy Puff, with 
sudden doubt. “ Happen they’re fighting still, Maister 
Royd ? An’ if so be as they are, wod I be wiser to hod 
off a bit an’ let ’em cool ? ” 

“Nay, constable! I looked to you to run between 
them and stop the quarrel.” 

“ Well, a lighter-headed man wod do as mich,” said 
Billy pompously. “ A lighter-headed constable wod 
put his head in amang th’ blows, an’ get hitten, an’ so 
mak a byword o’ th’ King he represents. Nay, nay, 
maister! I knaw th’ responsibilities I carry, but I’m 
thankful that I’ve noan let ’em warp my judgment, 
like. I’ll let ’em fratch, an’ I’ll let ’em bleed th’ ill 
humours out—an’ then I’ll come i’ time for th’ pains 
an’ penalties as by law directed. That’s what I war set 
i’ my high station for—to punish at after a bit o’ 
wrong-doing’s done.” 


UNREST 


229 


“ You talk like the Bench, constable,” said Royd, 
with an easy laugh. “ It’s only the dull folk who think 
you should step in before the mischief’s done.” 

The constable accepted Royd’s banter with his usual 
seriousness. “ There’d be few cobblers if shooin niver 
wore out, an’ fewer constables if they kept folk fro’ 
breaking th’ law,” he said, in a tone that precluded all 
dispute. “If ye set a trap for a ratten now, wod ye 
go warn him off just when he’s getten his nose at 
th’ door on’t? ” 

“ I’ve a lot to learn yet, William; for I own that this 
view of the matter had never struck me.” 

Billy Puff looked up at the master-weaver with 
kindly condescension. “ Well, my head is a fearful 
long way round, maister, an’ theer’s nobbut here an’ 
there one that’s fit like to be a constable, an’ if ye’ve 
learned owt fro’ me touching th’ dark an’ fearsome 
ways o’ law—why, ye’re welcome to’t. Gooid-morn- 
ing to ye, an’ I’ll step it slowly to th’ Friendly, until 
it’s time for th’ pains an’ penalties.” 

Royd went his way, and his gaiety slipped off him 
soon as he came in sight of Goit Mill—bleak, sordid, 
with the nameless air of misery and oppression all about 
it. Reaction from his late unrest and sudden victory 
came on apace; and he asked himself, as he rode 
through the mill-gate, if he were glad or sorry that the 
failure of the strike had pledged him to another year 
of drudgery. 

If there had been unrest at the Friendly Inn on this 
last day of May, if Royd had felt disquiet, there was 
unrest at quiet old Wynyates too, though now, just 


230 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


after the early hour of dinner, it showed no trace of it. 
The trees that stood on the moorside of the house were 
heavy with their leaves; the shadows under them were 
cool with the coolness of deep water; the grey old 
house itself was taking its after-dinner sleep—tran¬ 
quilly, as if it had long since lived through the time 
when sunshine and the summer bade it snatch restlessly 
at all which summer and the sunshine had to give it. 
Yet even in sleep the chivalry and courteous smoothness 
of old lineage seemed somehow stamped upon its walls, 
as surely as they showed in Squire Cunliffe or in his 
daughter Barbara. It had lived, this Grey House on 
the Hill; it had known the thrill of manhood meeting 
womanhood, and loving—the swifter course of wed¬ 
lock—the deep and steadfast mother-love and father- 
pride that listened to the laughter of little children up 
and down the panelled passages; it had watched jeal¬ 
ousy and kinship war together—had rocked to the 
storm of hate, and shuddered at the haplessness of 
sorrows not to be assuaged. It was living itself by 
this time; tears had greyed its face, and knowledge of 
life’s recompenses had softened it; the glamour of ex¬ 
perience, sieved through a kindly heart, was instinct 
in its every line. 

And Barbara was a part of it, as she came through 
the open door and crossed the flagged space that lay 
between the right-hand strip of garden and the left. 
She was friends with the grey old home, had watched 
and loved it; and it had given her something—some¬ 
thing no more to be explained than the gold of 
celandines in March—which was hers alone. She did 


UNREST 


231 


not disturb the silence, the shadowed, half-forgetful 
peace of house and courtyard and square-topped hors¬ 
ing-steps ; she only brought with her an added warmth, 
as of a frail wind blowing from the south. 

Nothing was to be hurried over, nothing missed. 
She leaned her arms upon the low rounded garden- 
wall, and counted her riches all afresh, and knew that 
selfless passion for the gifts of breaking bloom and 
spreading leaf which in itself is frank acknowledgment 
of God. There was no other garden spoke to her like 
this—none had such freedom in a little space, or let 
the fine and humble suited flowers live cheek by jowl 
with such unstudied friendliness. Low-lying, homely 
musk grew at the foot of giant peonies; lavender and 
rue, sweet marjoram, rosemary and bushy lad’s-love 
found each their corner; London pride, with its dainty 
blooms of pink and white, encroached upon the bed of 
nodding columbines, and gold day-lilies drooped their 
heads close by the red-tipped foxglove buds. But 
nearer than them all to the glamour of the house— 
more kin than all, perhaps, to Barbara’s self—were 
the pansies, which found a home in every trifling space. 
Over yonder by the wall a clump of the wildest sort 
lifted their little faces to the warmth, a plant of half¬ 
wild ones, purple and yellow, lived near neighbour to 
them; and all along the front the cultivated sort held 
right of place—great clumps of them, white, pied, and 
purple, turning wide eyes and velvet cheeks to the fresh¬ 
ness of the breeze and the deep rich splendour of the 
sunshine. 

A linnet sang from the rhododendron bush beside 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


232 

the wall, and Barbara turned to give him a soft, an¬ 
swering whistle. Above the chimney-stacks a peewit 
wheeled, and cried with less forlornness in his note than 
on the February day when Royd had hailed him, on 
the road to Wyecollar, as a brother Ishmael. Perhaps, 
for all that, the peewit brought a touch of sadness into 
the day; for Barbara no longer whistled to the linnet, 
but looked up with troubled eyes toward where the 
lapwing glanced white and black across the sloping 
roof. Then her glance went quickly to the parlour 
windows, that watched her soberly from under their 
six narrow mullions; she could see the spinet dimly 
outlined against the gloom within, and once again the 
memory came to her of how she" had given much to 
Stephen Royd in this same parlour—had given some¬ 
thing which had deepened the summer’s gladness and 
its pathos for her—something which had taken the 
veil of childhood for ever from her eyes, and had 
shown her a new world where men and women stood 
on either brink of great happiness, and looked across 
at one another, and feared to risk the steep descent 
from the hilltops of endeavour and of pride. 

She chased the mood away, however, and a roguish 
light displaced the trouble in her face. She was think¬ 
ing now how she and Stephen had gone a-grouse- 
snaring together in days gone by, how they had 
walked and galloped as they listed from edge to edge 
of the great moor-reaches that they loved; could she 
be afraid now of the comrade who had been so leal to 
her? Could she withdraw from him as persistently as 
she had done of late? He had been her bondslave 


UNREST 


2 33 


once; and surely, Barbara whispered to herself, it was 
no less than a duty to remember old and faithful 
servants. Smiling softly at the thought, she stooped 
above the wall and plucked a sprig of rosemary that 
caught her restless glance. 

“ Rosemary for remembranee,” she murmured. 
“ Shall I go to Hazel Mill to-day ? ” 

For it was her birthday, and far back as she could 
remember anything it had been a rite and ceremony of 
the day that she should visit Stephen at the mill, and 
carry the Squire’s entreaty that he would come that 
night to sup at Wynyates in little Barbara’s honour. 
Would Stephen forget, she wondered, now that another 
twelvemonth’s crust had settled on the days of remem¬ 
brance and of rosemary? 

“ Nay, but he’ll expect me,” she cried; “ and, whether 
it is maidenly or no, I cannot let him think me quite 
forgetful.” 

A step sounded on the flagged passage that led from 
the main door, and by and by Squire Cunliffe turned 
the corner of the garden wall. The warmth of the day, 
and a little of its peace, was on him; but his step was 
faltering, and he looked at the tokens of summer with 
the eye of one who does not look to enjoy either sum¬ 
mer or bleak weather over-long. When he saw Bar¬ 
bara, however, sitting on a grey coping-stone and 
rubbing the rosemary between her hands, and hiding 
her face among the savour of it, according to a habit 
that he knew by heart—the old Squire’s youth seemed 
for the moment to return. He went down to her, and 
stood and watched her in playful silence; and there 


2 34 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


was something piteous in the picture of these two, side 
by side in the courtyard that had seen the long genera¬ 
tions pass—she, who had so many summers to look 
forward to that their number seemed too great for 
reckoning; and he, who did not know if he would see 
another spring grow green above the old grey gables 
—he, who was eager now for longer life, not for his 
own sake, but for Barbara’s. 

“ What are your thoughts, Babette? ” he said at last. 

She kept her eyes steadily on the rosemary, not 
understanding the impulse that bade her hide her 
thoughts, and ashamed of it, Then she looked up into 
his face with the candour that had grown like a sweet¬ 
smelling herb between the father and the daughter. 

“ I was thinking of Stephen, father, and saying to 
myself that he would miss my birthday visit to the 
mill.” 

“ True, true,” the Squire murmured, with sudden 
disquiet. “ I have feared lately, Barbara, that he may 
think we slight him; I cannot tell—I hate these trade- 
days so—but I would never hurt a son of Jasper 
Royd’s if I could help it.” 

Barbara’s last doubt vanished; a father’s counsel 
may be very comforting if it points the w r ay the south 
wind blows. “ Then you will grant me leave to go and 
see him? Oh, I am so glad, father; he must not fancy 
us—must not fancy us—anything but what we are,” 
she finished vaguely. 

The Squire did not answer. He was thinking, not 
for the first time, how heartily he could have welcomed 
Royd, if only his fortunes had not been ruined at the 


UNREST 


*35 


start; how heartily he could have wished him well with 
Barbara, had circumstance dealt kindlier with the lad; 
but now, for Barbara’s sake, he dared not tell her 
why she was not free to follow where her heart directed. 

“ Shall I ask Stephen to come sup with us to-night? ” 
she said softly. “ I think it is my birthday privilege to 
ask him.” 

“ No, no, child! ” he cried, returning from the might- 
have-been. “ I have asked Mr. Bancroft for to-night, 
and he and Stephen are not the best of friends.” 

“ No,” said Barbara, with a smile that was gone as 
soon as it had come; “ it is not likely that they would 
be, is it, father? ” 

The Squire shifted from foot to foot, and traced a 
wavering pattern with his cane upon the lichens of the 
wall. “ Is not this Bancroft well enough? ” he said at 
last. “ What ails you, child, to see only the little things 
in which he is lacking? ” 

Her glance had genuine surprise in it. “ I scarcely 
see even them, I fear,” she answered frankly. “ Mr. 
Bancroft—how shall I say it?—seems to be just a 
shadow to me. I’m foolish, maybe; but his talk goes 
by me like wind among the rushes.” 

The Squire could not have had his own feeling 
toward Bancroft voiced more clearly; but he would 
not admit as much. “ Babette,” he said, with the half¬ 
hearted sternness that stood for keen rebuke, “ I do not 
like to hear my little maid speak so of any man. If 
your judgment is so harsh at eighteen, what will it be 
by the time you come to middle life? ” 

She laughed, with the reckless assurance of the 


236 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


young; and then she crept close up to him, and 
smoothed with one slim forefinger the lines of trouble 
that each passing month was graving deeper. 

“ Middle life is such a world away, daddy,” she said; 
“ I can’t think I shall ever reach so far. So why per¬ 
plex yourself about me ? ” 

“ It seems so far off, does it? Then what of old age, 
child?” 

His tone was so quiet, and yet so full of subtle sad¬ 
ness, that the girl’s eyes filled with tears. She saw 
old age as she had never seen it until now; its pathos 
seemed to deepen and grow understandable; she realised 
in some degree what it must mean to have memories 
instead of boundless hopes, and only a little graveward 
strip of road to travel in place of the sunlit way that 
once had stretched on to the far horizon and beyond. 
Old age —it was a thing to be treated reverently, to be 
treated with surpassing gentleness; and a new tender¬ 
ness—a deep, protecting tenderness—swept over Bar¬ 
bara. This father who had cared for her so loyally— 
she must repay him for it now. It was he now who 
was the child—even weaker than a child in some ways, 
inasmuch as the sap was not gaining in his veins, but 
dwindling to a weakened thread. 

“ Daddy, I will be good to you! ” she cried, letting 
her tenderness find voice. “ I’ll make it up to you— 
the old age, and the weariness, and all—I’ll make you 
see the sunshine with my eyes, and hope my hopes, 
and love the whole brave round again in me.” 

“ Why, little maid, you’ve done as much for me 
already,” he answered, drawing her to him. “ There, 


UNREST 


237 

there! It’s no day for tears, Babette; and see, Em not 
so old by half as you would make me out to be.” 

His voice faltered at the last, and both were silent 
for awhile, and the bond between them was drawn 
tighter as the moment of selfless outgoing, each to the 
other, lengthened. 

The Squire freed her presently, and took to walking 
up and down the courtyard; and the old, harassed look 
came back to him by slow degrees. 

“ I think you could make a sacrifice for me, if one 
were needful, Babette,” he said. 

“ Any sacrifice,” she cried impulsively, “ any sacri¬ 
fice, if only it would smooth the trouble from your face. 
Father, what is it? That look of unrest which has 
been growing with each passing month. You would 
never tell me what it meant.” 

“ It—was nothing, Barbara. You must not let such 
fancies stay with you.” 

“ It is no fancy,” she said, looking up into his face; 
“ and this afternoon you’re going to tell me what it is, 
father; and I am going to show you how a load is 
lightened when there are two to share it.” 

He hesitated, began to speak, then checked himself. 
“ I am glad you are going to Hazel Mill,” he said 
abruptly, “ lest Stephen should think we are altogether 
cold to him. There! You had better start at once, 
child, and then I shall have you back the sooner.” 

“ But the sacrifice you spoke of—some sacrifice I 
could make for you,” she went on, unwilling to be 
turned aside just when she had all but crossed the 
threshold of his confidence. 


238 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ I may ask one from you by and by,” the Squire 
murmured; “ I cannot tell—there are perplexities I 
cannot see my way through—but you shall not share 
them till you must. Go, Barbara, and let all troubles 
drift; your cheeks are whiter than I like to see them.” 

Seeing him fixed in his resolve, she tried to show a 
brighter face to him as she bade farewell; and at the 
corner of the road she turned for a last glance. Again 
she felt that rush of pity and of tenderness, seeing him 
stand there, bent, wistful, and forlorn, with the tranquil 
house behind him and the sleepy, breeze-stirred trees 
above his head. 

“ You’ll not be long away, Babette? ” he called, with 
an old man’s instinctive plea against the solitude he 
dreads. 

“ I cannot be,” she answered, with something of her 
old laugh; “Tim o’ Tab’s was watching my bees this 
morning, and he says they’re sure to swarm to-day. 
He vowed, indeed, they had waited for my birthday.” 

“ Doubtless they have, Babette. You must not dis¬ 
appoint them.” 

The Squire stood where Barbara had left him, long 
after he had seen her disappear, swinging her hat in 
one brown and ungloved hand. He thought of Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights; he remembered the fifty little 
points in which he lacked gentility, and the roystering 
habits with which the moorside credited him. Ban¬ 
croft was coming to-night to receive his final answer; 
he could put off the hour of his perplexity no longer, 
in the vague hope that the morrow, and the morrow, 
and the morrow, would bring some turn of fate that 


UNREST 


239 


should render his decision easy and straightforward. 
He must make decision now—now, with the summer 
stillness all about him, and the grey house whispering 
to him of the family honour, which had ever been the 
lirst and last article of this world’s faith with all the 
Cunliffes. Barbara must marry, and marry soon; she 
need not know the reason yet—the reason whose nature 
and whose cogency was known to none save to himself 
and Tim o' Tab’s. 

Still as the slumbrous elms themselves was old Squire 
Cunliffe; still as the garden-walls, the horsing-steps, 
the silent strip of road; and a bitterness was on him 
beyond any lie had known. Barbara had promised 
that she would make him live again in her; but there 
was no need for such promise; for no father surely had 
ever lost himself so completely in his daughter as had 
the Squire. His own happiness was less than nothing, 
—he had peered too curiously over the edge of his own 
grave for that,—and decision for this very cause was 
doubly hard. His head was hot, and his heart was 
beating fast, as he told himself that on the issue of 
to-night the child’s happiness must stand or fall. 

And yet his thoughts were all in the wrong groove, 
for lack of one small piece of knowledge. All would 
have been different if he had known that Stephen 
Royd was master of more than one small mill and one 
tiny, two-roomed cottage. He would have forgiven 
the trade, for under all his hatred of it his love for 
the only son of Jasper Royd was staunch and tried. 
But he did not know, for it pleased Royd to show 
threadbare fortunes to the world and to hide his wealth 


240 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


as if it were a crime; and the Squire came to his de¬ 
cision, there with the tangled scents of rue and pansy- 
blooms and lilies all about him; and Royd, for lack of 
one word which none came to whisper in the old 
Squire’s ear, gave up his place to Bancroft of the 
Heights. 

Scheme as he would, there seemed no other way for 
it. And so the Squire, when his mind was once made 
up, began to gild young Bancroft’s weaknesses. Had 
not he, too, been wild when his youth was hot? Had 
not he come to love a woman fair as Barbara? and 
might not the daughter, like the mother, prove strong 
to lead a laggard into the fold of chastity and all right¬ 
living? 

“ Young Bancroft loves her,” he muttered. “ Ay, 
there’s no doubt of that; and all may yet be very well 
with them.” 

He thought then of Barbara. How would she take 
it? She neither liked nor disliked Bancroft; it would 
have been better if she had. He realised, clearly 
enough, that he could never hope to see her marry him 
of her own free will; she would shrink still more from 
wedlock if he were frank with her as to the reason; 
he must depend entirely on her sense of sacrifice and 
of blind duty. And he had faith in these. 

Yet it was a sad tangle to the Squire; and as he 
turned to go into the house, there to await the coming 
of Bancroft of the Heights, his head was bent in deep 
humiliation. 

“To have brought her to this! ” he groaned. “ She’s 


UNREST 


241 


all I have—and I must give her into Bancroft’s keep- 
m g. 

Royd himself, meanwhile—Royd, who could so 
easily have laid certain doubts to rest—had chanced 
upon Parson Horrocks at the bend of Dangerous 
Corner. 

“ Parson,” he said, with a broader smile than his 
face had worn this many a day, “ Parson, I shall be 
free of it all within the twelvemonth. I’ve not been 
open with you of late, perhaps; I wanted to draw the 
reins tight into my hands before I said a word to 
you.” 

“ What, are times so good as that with you? Few 
other men have found them so of late.” 

“ They are so good that I have all but bought the 
Heights mortgages. You told me, sir, I should have 
the chance one day, and it came to me the very night 
I last spent with you here.” 

The Parson crossed to this man whom he had 
fathered, and gripped him by the hand. “ Stephen 
lad, I wish you well! I’ve watched you at the mill, 
and I’ve watched you with your eyes upon the Heights. 
How long now have you been dreaming of this day? 
Since you were sixteen—’tis a long while to walk up¬ 
hill, eh, Stephen ? ” 

There was a break in the older man’s voice; he had 
long since learned to find his keenest joys in watching 
the success of others, and now, with perfect under¬ 
standing of all this meant to Stephen, he was glad as 


242 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


if he had gained for himself the long low house upon 
the hill. 

“ But the top is well worth gaining, sir, and I’m 
going to rest a little when I reach it,” answered Royd. 

“To rest? Nay, lad, not after the years of toil. 
You’ll take to farming, likely, as you took to wool, 
and make your farm-folk wish that you had clung to 
trade.” 

“ Maybe—and none knows how sweet the feel of 
farming-tools will be after this other feel of wool,” 
said Stephen, with a sort of gaiety in his deep, grave 
voice. “ Parson, it is good to be master of one’s des¬ 
tiny.” 

A sense of foreboding seized the Parson, a vague, 
elusive feeling that somewhere there was a wrong 
note; and before he knew the words had framed them¬ 
selves. “ Stephen,” he was saying, “ let him that think- 
eth he standeth— You know the rest, lad. You’re 
master of the mortgages—master of your fortunes just 
now; but there’s a Hand upon you—whether you will 
or no.” 

“ There’s a hand on me—the hand of One who likes 
to see a man helping himself. It is what I have said 
to Barbara always of the Cunliffe lucklessness—that 
luck is work, and only work.” 

“ And yet—tell me one thing, lad,” said the Parson, 
wistfully almost; “is it for someone else that you are 
working? Is there the thought of another’s happiness 
somewhere deep under all the efforts ? ” 

Royd laughed, a round, contented laugh. “ There 
is, sir—but her happiness is mine, I fear.” 


UNREST 


243 


The old man doffed his graver air, and laid his hand 
on Stephen’s shoulder, and, “ I’m not to preach, on this 
of all good nights, am I ? ” he said. “ The work has 
been fairly done, and I have helped you to it in my 
little way, and to-morrow, if you’ll sup with me, we 
will crack a bottle together as of old, Stephen, you 
and I.” 

Yet again that feeling of disquiet seized the Parson 
as he reached the churchyard and wandered down 
among his graves, and thought of all that Royd had 
told him—thought of his eagerness, his self-confidence, 
his certainty that the Heights would soon be his. 
Disquiet grew into fear in no long time; for this was 
the place of buried ambitions, and aught save self- 
confessed humility seemed sadly out of place. 

“A Royd, he’s a Royd,” he murmured; “stubborn 
and stiff, with a pride that I have liked to see in 
him—with a pride I fear to think of now. Well, God 
grant he may not chance on some ill-fortune yet; for 
the lad has worked—ay, he has worked for it! ” 


CHAPTER XII 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 

B ARBARA, as she turned the corner of the road, 
carrying the picture of the Squire’s forlorn¬ 
ness with her, seemed to have lost her youth. 
Her step was languid, and there was trouble in her 
face; for until now she had only realised dimly, with¬ 
out admitting it, how heavily the years were bearing 
on her father. Her eyes seemed to have been opened 
suddenly this afternoon; she had seen a score little 
signs of feebleness, of growing care; and under all her 
warm sympathy for the Squire, there came the thought 
that her old life at Wynyates, so free and full of inti¬ 
mate delights, must soon be broken up. 

The mood left her by and by, however, as little by 
little the lusty, hard-won warmth of field and moor 
laid its own spell on her. May was dying, and the 
feet of June were climbing, swift and golden, up the 
stair of summer; the moor was no longer grey and 
black, and its tragic face was hidden under such glow¬ 
ing warmth of brown and crimson, bright green and 
silver-white, that it seemed rather a wide garden, walled 
by the kindly sky, than a barren waste whereon the 
winter winds and winter snow had wreaked their will. 
Nor did the wind know itself, so tempered was it and 
244 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


*45 


so sweet; for the sun-warmed beds of heath, mile after 
rolling mile, had lain in wait for it, and held it a 
little moment as it passed, and sent it forward the 
richer for its tarrying. 

“ I don’t know you, moor! ” cried Barbara, standing 
to watch the swelling rise of Marshcotes Moor across 
the valley. “ You change like this each spring—and 
every spring you hold the same surprise for me.” 

She was a child again, untroubled, wondering, glad 
of the five quick senses that gave her understanding 
of all this; then she passed toward the lower lying 
lands, and there was yellow everywhere—yellow of 
buttercups that turned the meadows into lakes of gold, 
whose surface was wind-ruffled into burnished waves 
—yellow of charlock flowers, with the frail, elusive 
scent that strong sunshine can compel from them— 
yellow of the sun, as the light hill-vapours, gathering 
between green heath and deep blue sky, mellowed his 
garishness. Farmer folk were working in the fields, 
or they were walking with laggard steps among their 
crops. And the same thought was in their minds as in 
Barbara’s, had habit let them acknowledge it—that the 
long winter had been well worth the winning through 
for one such God-sent day as this. 

Barbara remembered many a spring, but never one 
that could compare with this. Only generous rain in 
the forepart of the year, followed by week after week 
of ripe sun-heat, could have brought leaf and flower 
and blade to such perfection. The undergrowth by 
wall-sides and in coppices was rank and vivid green; 
the meadow-grass had that depth of bottom to it which 


246 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


a farmer loves to see; the thorns and rowans had twice 
their usual crop of berries. 

“ It fair teems, mistress—fair teems wi’ wickness,” 
said Farmer Haggas, as he met Barbara coming 
through his pastures. 

“ Have you ever known such a spring? Ever, Mr. 
Haggas ? ” she answered, stopping for a gossip, as 
everyone must do on such a morning. 

“ Ay, one—just one, an’ that war a far while back— 
afore ye war born or thowt on, mistress.” 

She looked at him demurely. “ And have you not 
one complaint to make against the weather ? ” she 
asked. 

“Ay, ay, Eve getten my own opinion on’t; an’ so 
wad ye if ye’d lived neighbour to Marshcotes weather 
as long as me. It’ll hev th’ laugh on us yet, mistress, 
one way or t’other. There’s yon field o’ mowing-grass, 
now; it’s rising grandly, an’ there’s herbs enough in’t 
to sweeten mony a side o’ beef. But what then? It’ll 
come rain—hail an’ thunner, likely, into th’ bargain— 
sooin as iver we get th’ scythes well into’t; an’ then 
it mud as weel be straw for all th’ gooid there’ll be 
in’t.” 

“ And if it doesn’t rain? ” laughed Barbara, prepar¬ 
ing to go on again. “ Will you admit the weather’s 
good behaviour then?” 

Farmer Haggas shook his head with slow assurance 
as he stooped to mow a thistle with his stick. “ I 
wodn’t like to,” he said. “ It’s weel enough to let a 
day like this go through an’ through ye, an’ mak a 
fooil on ye. That’s weel enough if ye’re on th’ young 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


2 47 


side of experience, an’ if ye’ve niver had a farm to 
follow. But I mind what my father alius said; he’d 
knawn t’ weather for threescore years, hed my father, 
an’ he alius said to me, ‘ John,’ says he, ‘ trust a woman, 
an’ she’ll happen not fooil ye more nor once i’ ivery 
twice; but trust to t’ weather, an’ ye’ll niver be owt 
else but fooiled.’ ” 

“ Oh, you’re an unbeliever! ” laughed Barbara. “ I 
knew you would find some cause for grumbling some¬ 
where.” 

“ An’ I’m not th’ only one as lies his doubts,” went 
on the other, with great content. “ I met Maister 
Royd not long since, riding back fro’ Scartop way; an’ 
I said it war noan as bad a day as some I’d seed; an’ 
he said it war reet for us farmers, but he feared his 
dams war going to run dry.” 

Barbara’s colour deepened at the chance reference 
to Stephen; and she stayed to hear no more of Farmer 
Haggas’s philosophy, though he tried all his slow arts 
to detain her; for the one thing about the moorside 
of which he had no doubts was little Mistress Barbara. 

“ Stephen thinks always of his mills in these sad 
days,” she murmured, frowning as she went down the 
last long field that opened into Hazel Dene. 

The long drought, indeed, was threatening the water- 
supply of every mill about the moorside; the crops had 
bottom moisture left over from the early rains, and 
there had been slight gloaming-showers to keep them 
fresh of leaf; but hardly a stream ran more than half 
its usual height, and it was with real anxiety that 
Royd, after his frugal midday meal, went up the dene 


248 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


to see how low the level of his dams had sunk. Hazel 
Beck, however, was always the last stream to run dry, 
and he found the water standing at its wonted level 
in all three ponds—just touching the overhanging 
boughs of thorn, that is, and dipping them now and 
then in a bath that left them sparkling with a thousand 
rainbow-drops. 

“ The rain will come,” thought Royd, “ before we, 
at any rate, run short of water.” 

Instinctively he looked up toward the moor, which 
was the mother of all his mill-wheel’s vigour, all its 
noisiness and haste; and on the sudden his face 
changed, as he shaded his eyes with one hand against 
the sun that stood southward up above the middle of 
the valley. It was long since Barbara had been his 
visitor, and even yet he doubted his own eyesight. 
Down the wooded dene she came, dainty and fresh as 
the summer’s day itself, with a step that had learned in 
babyhood to move across the rough moor-ways without 
a stumble. 

“ Barbara! ” cried Royd, in a voice that betrayed the 
trend of many a recent musing. 

“ Why, yes. Is it so very wonderful that Barbara 
should come to Hazel Mill to-day? You look as if I 
were a ghost, Stephen.” 

She had not expected to be so free of shame; indeed, 
she had more than once, during the walk from Wyn- 
yates, half-turned about and asked herself if pride 
would ever let her get to Hazel Mill. But now—now 
that she stood face to face with him, and saw the little 
signs of feeling that women notice—her own embar- 



DOWN THE WOODED DENE SHE CAME, DAINTY AND FRESH AS THE 

SUMMER’S DAY. 





























































































































• • 



































A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


249 


rassment was altogether lost in his; she was conscious 
only of a desire to put him at his ease. Her sense of 
humour, too, was touched that it should be so,—that 
she, the child who had played about his knee, should 
have to teach him self-possession now. 

“ It is long since we met in Hazel Dene,” he stam¬ 
mered. 

“Fie, Stephen! You’ve forgotten—as I feared you 
would. Do you know what day it is? ” 

His face cleared suddenly. “ Why, it is your birth¬ 
day, Babs! ” he cried. 

“Yes, but you did not know it until you were re¬ 
minded.” 

“ I am growing old, Babette.” 

“ Is trade so all-absorbing that such little things slip 
by ? ” said she, after a silence. 

He thought of the way in which the child had crossed 
and re-crossed all his schemes, of pride, ambition, 
money-making—crossed them as the weft goes in and 
out among the warp, making the finished piece; and he 
laughed, for a reason Barbara could not know. 

“ You have not answered me,” she said. 

“ I was thinking—thinking that Barbara’s birthday 
was perhaps the biggest thing that ever Ling Crag 
Moorside knew.” 

“ Thank you, Stephen,” she said, lifting her brows 
a little. “ Mr. Bancroft of the Heights makes me that 
sort of speech once every day at least—I think I do 
not care for them, somehow.” 

The rebuke went by him; he was too sure of his 
own heart. “ Little Barbara, I’m not young enough to 


25° 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


flatter you/’ he said. “ I had forgotten your birthday, 
it puzzled me to know just why I did.” 

“ Indeed, I don’t know, Stephen. Trade has changed 
you, that is all.” 

“ Yes,” he said, his old sense of loss of caste return¬ 
ing to him, “ trade has come between us, Barbara, and 
you know it.” 

She looked him frankly in the face, with the clear, 
unswerving honesty that was half the secret of her 
charm. “ That is not true, Stephen,” she said. “ Do 
I care how you make your living? You make it, and 
you’re Stephen, and that suffices.” 

Royd wondered and was silent. None but Barbara 
could have said so much, yet left the man she praised 
so sure of his own humbleness. 

“ Babs,” he said, after another silence, “ I have done 
a day’s work to-day—a real day’s work. My men 
were going to strike, and I made them see my side of 
the question.” 

“ Oh, I am glad! ” she cried. “ There have been 
so many rumours lately, and they told me you would 
be ruined, Stephen, along with all the other masters.” 

“ No, I shall not be ruined, Babs.” 

“ Hush! Say ‘ God willing ’—say 4 God willing ’; 
if only to please me, Stephen. I’m frightened when 
you say, ‘ I will, I will,’ and never stop to think of— 
of what may come to spoil your plans.” 

“ If God wills, I shall better my fortunes,” he said, 
with a submissiveness she had not looked for. “ And 
then, Babette ? What then ? ” 

There was such mastery in his face—such a plain, 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


251 


“ And you shall share my fortunes,”—that she was 
frightened of herself—of him—of circumstance. 

“ You—you’ll wonder why I came to-day,” she mur¬ 
mured—eager to say anything that should in some 
way lessen that air of mastery. “ I—I couldn’t forget 
old days as lightly as certain of my friends; and so 
I came, as I have always done, to play about the mill, 
and to see your eerie water-wheel turn round, and to 
watch the ducks go waddling after the fussy drake 
who leads them to the stream.” 

He was silent, looking at her. Men had found him 
hard in trade, had learned that his stubborn will met 
theirs like flint, and would not be gainsaid; but it was 
Babette who bore the full brunt of it now. He knew, 
with the clearness that a man may go through life and 
never know, that he must win her; she was the other 
half of him; she made the scheme of things intelligible, 
straight. She, too, had her will, and it was strong; 
yet she was clay in his hands at this meeting-place of 
their two destinies. 

The chance slipped by him. It was his weakness and 
his strength that he would do nothing anyway by 
halves, and he said to himself that he would win free of 
trade, free of the things that she neither understood 
nor liked, before he told her what must very soon be 
told. The mill was too near; the smell of wool was 
in the air; and Barbara was apart from all these things. 

“ I don’t believe you have changed,” he said. The 
words were in themselves a blunt command. 

“ I changed ? ” she echoed in surprise. “ Why, no. 
Who told you so ? ” 


252 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ No one,” he answered briefly. “ Come see the 
brave old sights, Babs.” 

Troubled, unsure of the ground upon which they 
stood, she followed him past the triple row of dams, 
and loitered by the goit where ferns and ragged robin 
and a last pale primrose eye looked down upon the 
racing water. 

“ The dams have not altered, Stephen—nor the goit 
—nor the wee wildflowers,” she said. But her voice 
was sorrowful, as if all else had altered. 

“ They never guessed that there was money in the 
world,” he answered briefly. 

They said no more until they came to the dark roof 
that hid the water-wheel. Barbara held one wooden 
pillar with both hands and peeped round into the swirl¬ 
ing stream of water that came black, save where the 
wheel had churned it into white, from out its noisy 
prison-house. All the old mystery returned to her, all 
the old vague, elusive charm—the sense of horror as 
the water went lap, lap, lapping up, against its walls 
—the dank, soft odour—the feeling that this tireless 
wheel had life, malignant life, in it. For awhile she 
stood there, peering into the noisy gloom; and then 
she turned her back on it, and laughed, and— 

“ Stephen,” she said, “ I knoiv there’s a goblin ready 
to spring out on me.” 

“ He’s over-busy—he has to keep the wheel in mo¬ 
tion.” 

“ Ah, yes, I remember the tale you used to frighten 
me with at gloaming-tide. Directly work ceases in the 
mill, and the wheel need not be kept in motion any 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


253 


longer, the goblin leaves his prison. I remember, 
Stephen! He has a mouth of fire that the water cannot 
quench, and great, webbed feet that help him in the 
turning of the wheel; and his chief meals—his serious 
meals—have little maids for a foundation. Was not 
that the old fairy-tale you used to frighten me with? 
I think you must often have wanted to be rid of me 
in the old days, Stephen.” 

“ I often feared the long walk home to Wynyates 
for you. I was always afraid for you, Babette, some¬ 
how—you were so fairy-like and slight.” 

A sudden helplessness came over her. His kindness 
hurt her—it should have been sheer cruelty, or some¬ 
thing more than kindness. 

“ It’s the same little girl, Stephen,” she said wearily, 
—“ and she has still a long walk home to Wynyates. 
Good-bye.” 

He tried to keep her, but she would not stay; tried 
to bring back to mind that old custom bade her take 
bite and sup within his cottage, but she would not 
listen. And so at last he walked with her as far as 
the foot-road leading upward to Ling Crag. And all 
the way the child was struggling with her pride on 
the one hand, and on the other with her sense of what 
was due to Stephen. Kindliness claimed the victory, 
as usual, while Royd was holding out his hand in 
token of farewdl. 

“ I—I have something to say to you, Stephen,” she 
said, with her old fearless glance, though the words 
came haltingly. “ I wanted to ask you to sup with us 
to-night—that is old custom, too, you know—but Mr. 


2 54 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Bancroft is coming up to Wynyates—on some business, 
so I judge.” 

Royd recalled how he had heard this invitation 
given to Bancroft of the Heights, as they all stood 
after church-time in the Marshcotes street; he recalled 
his own misgiving at the time, his wonder as to the 
reason why Bancroft’s presence should be sought for 
at the Wynyates supper-board on the red-letter day of 
old Squire Cunliffe’s life. And now he laughed at his 
own misgivings; Barbara spoke of the matter with 
such carelessness—nay, with such disdain—that it was 
clear there could be no deeper motive in it. If Ban¬ 
croft were coming as a suitor, then Barbara would 
surely have had some hint of it by this. 

“ I shall miss you to-night,” he said—“ I shall miss 
you more than you know of, Babette.” 

One glance she gave him, and then she went up the 
shadowed field as if she feared pursuit. Twice Royd 
made forward, under the impulse to say what had 
been left unsaid down there in Hazel Dene; and twice 
he checked himself. It was not long to wait, God will¬ 
ing, before he could come to her with clean hands— 
come to her as the Master of the Heights, and plead 
his suit. 

If he had known! But he knew as little as did 
Barbara—Barbara, who was asking herself, with grave 
self-condemnation, if she had not been over-generous 
just now to Stephen in telling him so frankly what her 
wishes were, and what her regrets. 

The combers, meanwhile, were finishing their Mon- 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


255 


day’s Parliament at the Friendly Inn in the fashion 
that best pleased them. They had been ripe for mis¬ 
chief earlier in the day; they had been passion-driven 
by the memory of their sufferings; they had listened to 
Royd’s talk and had come to a decision which was to 
affect their future very gravely, one way or the other; 
and now they had shaken themselves free of gravity, 
as a dog shakes the water off its back, and they 
were boys again. Perhaps it was the energy with 
which they laboured at the comb and pot in working- 
hours; perhaps it was the freedom of their work, and 
their freedom from the anxieties which perplexed the 
farmers; whatever the cause, they were the lightest- 
hearted section of a community which was not given 
over-much to gaiety. 

It was Tim o’ Tab’s who led them into frolic to-day 
—Tim, who was anxious at all costs to keep them in 
good humour, so that Royd’s victory of the morning 
might be sealed. When he looked through the bar- 
window, then, and saw Billy Puff come strutting up 
the street—after his meeting with Stephen Royd and 
his promise to come up in time to enforce the “ pains 
and penalties ”—Tim blessed the constable who only 
yesterday had put him in the stocks. Billy was fat, 
and big, and of a vanity that dulled his wits; there 
was no man in the parish so popular as a butt; and he, 
for his part, was partial to these Monday gatherings 
at the Friendly; for he liked his ale, and he liked to 
drink at other men’s expense, and he was so apt a 
target for jests of all kinds that the combers were 


256 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


always ready to stand him treat. A shout went up this 
morning, as Tim looked over his shoulder at the 
combers. 

“ Here’s Billy Puff, lads! ” he cried. “ I thowt he’d 
noan be so varry long away fro’ tlT Friendly on a 
Monday.” 

“ Ay, I’ll warrant theer’s Billy Puff,” laughed 
Shackleton, “ He can smell beer as a dog winds a 
fox, can Billy.” 

“ We’ll hev a bit o’ fun wi’ him, lads,” Tim mur¬ 
mured. “ It wodn’t be like a Monday, wod it now ? 
if we didn’t mak him puff an’ blow a bit.” 

“ He made thee puff an’ blow a bit yestermorn, 
Tim,” put in another comber slily; “ I saw thee i’ th’ 
stocks as I came home fro’ chapel, an’ I couldn’t deny 
’at Billy hed th’ laugh on ye that time.” 

*'‘ Doubles is quits,” Tim answered gaily ; “ an I’m 
noan denying I’ve my own reasons for wanting to see 
Billy Puff look fooilish.” 

The constable had entered the inn by this time, and 
was moving down the passage. True to his ideal of 
a constable’s duty, he had come very slowly up the 
hill, with frequent rests whenever he reached to a gate 
or a low piece of wall; but now he judged that the 
quarrel, if any such there had been, would be in a fair 
way to be settled. He waddled in, accordingly, as 
far as the threshold of the bar, then thrust his face 
just round the corner of the door, with a certain air 
of slyness which he judged to be a necessary adjunct 
of the law. 

“ Is theer ony law-breaking abroad? ” said he. “ I 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


2 57 

doan’t trust ye ower far, an’ Em answerable to His 
Majesty for th’ peace o’ this here parish.” 

“ Ye are that, William—an’ thy duty taks thee often, 
Eve noticed, within ale-tap reach.” 

“ My duty taks me wheel* my duty lies, an’ that’s 
more nor some on ye can say. I met Maister Royd 
just now on th’ road, an, he telled me there war some 
mak o’ fighting going forrard here; an’ so I came reet 
on up th’ hill, wi’ a mind set on higher matters nor 
beer—not but what it’s cooling to th’ wits, is ale, if ye 
tak it reetly,” he added tentatively. “ Eve knawn a 
man wark better for’t, an’ th’ law is a heating sort o’ 
trade to follow.” 

“ Give him a quart mug, lads,” cried Tim o’ Tab’s. 
“We shall see less o’ yond barrel-full o’ Maister Royd’s 
by th’ half now Billy’s come to see th’ peace kept.” 

“ So Maister Royd telled ye there’d been a bit o’ a 
fratching-do ? ” put in Shackleton. “Well, he should 
knaw, I reckon, for it war him ’at fratched—an’ me 
’at war felled as flat as a penny-piece.” 

“ He didn’t claim no share in it hisseln,” said the 
constable doubtfully. “ Nay, I doubt you’re trailing 
me; he looks too quiet, does Maister Royd, for ony 
sich wark as yond.” 

“Us trail thee, William?” said Tim o’ Tab’s, with 
his gentlest air. “ We’re ower-fond o’ thee begow! 
Tha mud be putting us all into th’ stocks again.” 

The constable glowed with memory of his recent 
triumph. “Em noan denying I did my duty by ye, 
Tim o’ Tab’s; an’ Em pleased to see ye tak it i’ th’ 
reet spirit, wi’ humbleness an’ sorrow.” 


2 5 8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Tim looked doubly contrite. “ It’s made a new man 
o’ me—made me all ower again, as tlT saying is—an’ 
I bear thee no sort o’ malice for’t, William, as some 
chaps wod.” 

Billy’s face was buried in his mug by this time, or 
he would have seen a meaning look and a meaning 
wink pass from one to another of the combers; for they 
knew this mood of Tim’s, and they prepared to look on 
at the sport as they would have watched a cock-fight 
or a game of knur-and-spell. 

As for Tim, he had tried unavailingly, during a 
quiet Sabbath evening’s poaching, to find some way in 
which to straighten the score between himself and 
Billy Puff; and now he was feeling his way until the 
constable, as the ale mellowed and increased his fool¬ 
ishness, should give him some clear opening. Tim, 
indeed, might have been tickling trout, so carefully 
he moved toward his quarry; a touch of flattery here, 
and a touch there; a growing conviction of the con¬ 
stable’s dignity; a wish to let old sores be healed. 
And all the while Billy was mellowing fast; and all 
the while the combers backed up Tim o’ Tab’s with 
a gravity equal to his own. 

Flick, the terrier, however, bade fair to open up one 
ancient ground of quarrel. The dog’s humour had all 
the flavour of his master’s, and it pleased him now to 
exhibit a deep curiosity touching Billy’s calves—with 
no bad intentions in the world, but simply for the sport 
of seeing him withdraw, ale-pot in hand, to the partial 
security offered by the wall. 

“ Lig thee dahn! ” cried Billy, in a voice which would 


A BIRTHDAY MEETING 


259 


have convinced any dog that ever stepped. “ Lig thee 
dahn, I tell thee! ” 

The terrier grew still more inquisitive, till Tim re¬ 
proved him. “ What, would’st tamper wi’ tlT legs o’ 
justice,” he said. “ Nay, Flick, tha mun niver so mis¬ 
behave thyseln.” 

“ I’ll tell thee what, I’ll throttle that dog o’ thine; 
he’s a menace to th’ whole parish,” said the constable, 
swelling to his wonted size again as Flick withdrew. 

A great peal of laughter drowned his speech. The 
combers glanced at the little, patch-eyed terrier, 
with its good-tempered face and quickly wagging tail; 
and the notion that Flick could be a standing menace 
to any parish struck home to their sense of humour. 
Tim o’ Tab’s was quiet, however; he had remembered 
on the sudden an old tale of his father’s, in which a 
dog and a foolish man played equal parts, and he won¬ 
dered if Billy Puff was mellowed far enough to take a 
part in the same play again. 

“ It’s weel enow to talk o’ throttling him,” he said 
slowly, “ but he’s a stronger dog than tha thinks like, 
Billy Puff, for all his littleness. I’ve knawn him pull 
a man clean ower a running stream, that I hev—clean 
ower an’ on to th’ bank at t’other side.” 

“That’s a lie, Tim o’ Tab’s!” cried the constable. 
“ Theer war niver a man born so little that Flick here 
could pull him ower.” 

“ Well, he was littlish,” Tim admitted; “ but th’ dog 
pulled him that easily he hedn’t to use half his strength. 
Now tha’rt a big un, William,” he went on, with a 
careful scrutiny of the constable; “ theer’s none ’ud 


26 o 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


deny tha’rt a big un—but for all that I’ve a fancy 
Flick could just manage thee.” 

The constable set down his mug and looked at Tim 
o’ Tab’s; then he wiped the froth from his lips, with 
one red hand. “ Tha’rt lying, Tim o’ Tab’s,” he said, 
with grave deliberation. 

“ Well, then, I may be or I mayn’t be; but I tell thee 
what I’ll do, Billy—I’ll bet thee a barrel o’ ale on’t.” 

The other jumped at the chance of winning the 
coveted measure so easily. “ An’ I’ll hod thee to’t,” 
he cried, “ ay, I’ll hod thee to’t; an’ all here is witness 
to a fair bargain.” 

Some of the combers, remembering the old tale, read 
Tim’s meaning; the rest took it for granted; and a 
chorus went up, “ Ay, we’ll witness it.” 

“ I tell thee what,” said Tim, after a pause, “ we’ll 
hev a laking-day by an’ by, just to clinch our bargain 
wi’ Maister Royd, an’ we’ll meet i’ Hazel Dene; an’ 
Flick yonder shall pull William across t’ beck, as sure 
as I war born i’ Marshcotes parish.” 

“ We’ll hev a laking-day by an’ by,” repeated the 
constable, with a heavy laugh, “ an’ one o’ us shall addle 
a barrel o’ ale; ay, for sure—but it willun’t be thee 
nor thy dog, Tim o’ Tab’s.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


A ruffler’s wooing 

D ICK BANCROFT of the Heights rode out to 
the wooing. A good leg he had, a jauntily 
secure seat in the saddle; and his face would 
have been named handsome in any other parish but this 
of Marshcotes. Up here, however, they asked for 
much in a man’s face before they praised it—wanted 
such qualities, of strength and knottiness and jaw- 
breadth, as Bancroft of the Heights could never com¬ 
pass. Good there was, and bad, in the face, with its 
straight, thinnish nose, its pointed chin, its woman’s 
sort of mouth—good and bad, yet not enough of either 
to satisfy the captious Marshcotes critics. 

As his face was, so the man showed himself. He 
drank and gambled and ruffled it up and down the 
country-side, yet scarcely with his whole heart in the 
business; a little afraid of his skin at all times, he was 
looked upon as one who rather aped to be a moonrake 
than felt the real old stuff working in his veins. Let 
a man be good, or let him be wild as the wind of 
heaven, said the moor-folk, as they shook their heads 
over young Bancroft; but let him show strength in the 
doing, whichever road he chose. And so, time and 
time, said bluff old Parson Horrocks, who came of 
261 


262 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


too old a hill-breed to cut his fixed opinions accord¬ 
ing to his cloth. 

Not that Bancroft of the Heights had any sort of 
care of his neighbours’ opinion as he rode out to Wyn- 
yates this evening. His heart was blithe, and warm 
with the thought of Mistress Barbara’s beauty; his 
mind was cool, and busy with reckoning up the old 
Squire’s wealth. Ay, luck was with him, as it had 
ever been! The money apart, he was deep in love with 
Barbara’s bonnie face; yet, without the lands and the 
guineas that would one day be hers, he could no more 
look to marry her than he could meet his creditors. 

“What are the odds?” laughed Bancroft, as he 
cantered smoothly through Ling Crag village, and 
down toward Wynyates. “ They can beggar me to¬ 
morrow, if so it please them. Ay, but this is to-day, 
and much may be done in a day. These rascal lawyers 
will sing to a different tune when I tell them that the 
heiress of Wynyates lies tame as a cushet in my hands. 
Hi, there! A measure, a measure,” he broke off, in 
his swaggering style, as he stopped in front of the 
Friendly Tavern. 

The landlord came out with a brimming cup of rum. 
“ I drink to the luck that is coming,” laughed Bancroft 
of the Heights, as he tossed a coin into the empty cup 
and handed it back again. 

“So sure as all that, is it?” muttered the host, 
watching the gallant racket down the road. “ Well, 
I war niver by way o’ being sure of owt i’ this life, 
myseln, an’ it’s ill-luck to start wi’, to my thinking, is 
making a brag an’ a boast on’t.” 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


263 


Mistress Barbara, meanwhile, was walking in the 
high-walled garden that stood just across the road 
from the grey old house of Wynyates. A fragrant and 
a quiet place it was to-night, with the sun going down 
toward the spur of moor beyond, with the bees making 
a lazy stir among the auriculas and cowslips and 
London pride, and the throstles fluting it bravely from 
the blossom-weighted pear-trees. Softer and softer, as 
the sun westered, grew the light upon the weather- 
streaked thatches of the beehives, set all along the 
southern wall. More softly, too, the garden odours 
crept abroad. Here was a bush of lavender, and there 
a fragrant clump of lads’-love and of lassies’-love 
commingled; and the wind caught up the tangled 
scents, and ran once again to the camomile and sweet 
marjoram beds in the corner, and returned to Mistress 
Barbara’s side with all its laden sweets. 

The girl laughed idly at the wind-sport and the 
throstles; for this was the Ling Crag summer, and it 
behoved all children of the moor to laugh while oppor¬ 
tunity was theirs. Not gay at all is the wonted hu¬ 
mour of these uplands; and their summer is, like a 
grave man’s smile, a wondrous deep and tender thing 
to look upon. 

“ The peonies will blow in a few more days,” said 
Mistress Barbara, as she stooped to pinch the bulging, 
pink-white buds between a dainty thumb and white 
forefinger. And then she glanced at the row of hives, 
and from them to the upper branches of the apple-trees. 
There was a pleasant spice of duty mingled with this 
idle garden-walk, for Tim o’ Tab’s had prophesied, 


264 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


with a great air of certainty, that there would be at 
least one swarm of bees this May, after so long a 
spell of right king’s weather; and Barbara, whose espe¬ 
cial care the bees were, was not minded to let a swarm 
cluster and fly away again for lack of watching. True, 
the hour was wearing late, but the soft light upon 
the thorn-trees and the apple-boughs grew bright upon 
the sudden, with that last brilliance before gloaming- 
tide which sometimes tempts the bees to swarm. Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights, riding down the slack of the 
trough that lay between himself and Wynyates, could 
see full into the red-walled garden, and his pulse quick¬ 
ened; and his wayward fancy dwelt not at all on Mis¬ 
tress Barbara’s guineas now. 

“Good faith, but she is worth the winning!” he 
muttered blithely, as one who was sure of easy con¬ 
quest. True, he had yet to ask the Squire’s consent; 
but of that he had so little doubt that here and now 
he meant to press his suit, if he could persuade a wilful 
child to hearken. 

Barbara was forgetting the bees, meanwhile, as she 
picked a velvet-cloaked auricula and fastened it breast- 
high in her girdle. “ Stephen was less full of cares 
to-day, less full of business,” she mused. “ I wonder, 
will he leave this hard, cold trade as soon as he has 
made his fortune? ” 

A step sounded on the path behind her, and she 
glanced up—first, with a look of half expectancy, and 
then with a disdainful arching of the eyebrows. 

“ Good-even, Mr. Bancroft. Is father not within 
doors? ” she said coldly. 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


265 


He lifted his beaver with a pretty flourish. “ Could 
I stop to enquire, when I had seen his daughter in the 
garden ? ” 

“ I cannot say, sir, except that you had business, so 
I thought, with father, and that you might have cared 
to get it done with before supper-time.” 

“ My business is to give you birthday greeting. Will 
you accept so much from me?” 

“ Many thanks,” said she, with a curtsey. “ Oh, see, 
see! you must help me, Mr. Bancroft,” she broke off, 
pointing to the gnarled thorn-bush in the corner. “ I 
do not know how long they may have been there; we 
must be quick, indeed we must.” 

Following the direction of her forefinger, Bancroft 
saw what looked like a heavy bunch of grapes depend¬ 
ing from one of the outstanding thorn-boughs. The 
bunch swayed slowly with the breeze, and on the out¬ 
skirts of it he could see the vanning of countless busy 
wings; and he realised that this wooing of his had been 
interrupted by no more serious matter than the swarm¬ 
ing of a hive of bees. 

“ The bees can wait,” he growled. 

“ Ah, but they cannot! A swarm in May is worth 
a load of hay, as any Ling Crag gentleman should 
know. I could not forgive myself if I let so rare a 
chance go by.” 

Mistress Barbara had turned already, and there was 
real eagerness, and a very business-like attention to the 
details needful, as she ran to the garden-gate and out 
across the courtyard. 

“ I want some honey, Martha—quick! ” she cried, 


266 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


running into the cool, oak-raftered kitchen, with its 
brave sheen of pewter on the walls and its rows of cups 
on the polished dresser. 

“ Oh, ay—an’ honey is fine an’ sweet, when it serves 
to lead doubting gentry to the hive,” muttered Martha 
drily, as she bustled to the great jar standing on the 
lowest pantry-shelf. For she had heard young Ban¬ 
croft’s horse taken to the stables, and had watched the 
gallant disappear into the garden, and had formed her 
own conclusions, as any sensible woman had a right to 
do. 

But Barbara was far too full of the present matter to 
remember any gentry, doubting or passionate. She 
squeezed a fair measure of honey into a bowl, stirred 
water into it until the mixture was to her liking, then 
ran back to where Bancroft of the Heights was moodily 
watching the hanging swarm of bees. Very curious 
was the sight, to one who had less pressing matters 
on his mind than a love-declaration. The queen bee 
hung bravely to her twig; her subjects, in their sober, 
workmanlike livery of brown, had fastened themselves, 
as many as could contrive, to this sovereign of their 
little kingdom, while the rest hung down, layer after 
layer, each clinging to his brethren above. 

Mistress Barbara went to the long stone seat that 
hugged the southern wall, and turned an empty hive 
on end, and spread the liquid honey on its sides; then 
motioned to her moody cavalier that he should carry 
it to the thorn-bush. “ Now tap the bough gently, 
and I will hold the hive in place,” she whispered. 
“ And be careful, Mr. Bancroft, for all depends on us.” 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


267 


Bancroft, impatient and angry, was inclined to spoil 
all by shaking the bough over-roughly; but fear of the 
resulting bee-stings, and dread of the little lady’s scorn, 
put him in a soberer humour. He tapped the bough; 
the bees dropped, compact and silent, into the wide 
mouth of the hive, and Mistress Barbara lowered it 
then to the square of rough matting which she had 
placed in readiness upon the grass. Bancroft was 
allowed no further share in this adventure now, for 
she put one hand beneath the hive, rested the other 
lightly on the thatch, and so carried her captured 
swarm in triumph to its proper slab. 

“ Mr. Bancroft, was not that well done? ” she cried, 
turning to him with a merry, glancing colour in her 
cheeks. “ It is the first time I have hived a swarm, and 
Tim o’ Tab’s laughed so stupidly when I told him that 
I meant to try—as if, indeed, a woman’s hands were 
not like to be better in the conduct of so delicate a 
matter.” 

“ Tim o’ Tab’s,” growled Bancroft, whose one aim 
was to commence his wooing soon as this wayward 
lass would let him; “Tim is the sorriest rogue in all 
the parish, and right glad I was to see him safely 
housed in stocks yestermorn.” 

“ Were you, indeed ? ” cried Barbara, with sudden 
heat. “ I was as sorry as could be, and so was father, 
and so was Parson Horrocks.” 

“ He leaves the Squire’s game alone, at anyrate,” 
said Bancroft; “ and the Parson has not so much as 
a pheasant to be stolen; but we of the Heights have 
no good cause to bless Tim o’ Tab’s.” 


268 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Why, no,” said Barbara demurely; “ ’twas on the 
Heights land that I learned to net, and snare, and—■” 

“ You? ” he cried, staring open-mouthed at her. 

“ Oh, it was in your father’s time, and I was very, 
very little then. You did not know that Tim and I 
were friends before I reached his elbow—that it was I 
who always ran into the kitchen, when Tim called at 
the Hall about father’s business, to see that the maids 
gave him the best of everything to eat—that sometimes 
I would slip away with him, and learn the mysteries 
of a double-looped wire, and the way to dust a field 
with parsley-seed, and—” 

“We waste a perfect evening in discussing Tim o’ 
Tab’s,” said Bancroft, coming nearer to her. 

Barbara, not guessing what he had in mind, yet 
vaguely troubled by his manner, moved abruptly to 
the gate. “ The evening is all but over, Mr. Bancroft,” 
she said. 

He followed her across the courtyard and into the 
parlour; and Squire Cunliffe, dozing over a glorwing 
fire of peats, was roused by a clear voice at his elbow, 
“ Father, here is Mr. Bancroft. Am I so very late for 
supper? ” 

The Squire started out of his doze and rubbed his 
eyes. But Mistress Barbara was gone, and only Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights stood by his side—Dick Bancroft, 
looking vexed a trifle, and less at ease with self than 
was his wont. 

“ Welcome, lad,” cried the old man, with the never- 
failing heartiness that bade all comers eat and drink 
their fill at Wynyates. Yet, a moment after, he fixed a 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


269 


keen eye on young Bancroft, and wondered what little 
Barbara and he had found to talk about together in the 
garden. 

Bancroft said little until supper was well through, 
and Barbara had left them to it, with a kindly good¬ 
night to her guest. The wine—though the Squire 
drank sparingly, as his custom was—passed more freely 
then, until at last young Bancroft warmed to a sudden 
resolution. 

“ There is a matter I should wish to broach, Squire/' 
he said half-jauntily. 

The Squire inclined his head. “ I am at your serv¬ 
ice, Mr. Bancroft,” he answered. 

“ I love your daughter. Am I free to tell her so ? ” 

Squire Cunliffe pushed his chair back from the table. 
He filled his glass afresh, contrary to all rule, and 
drank it off. His kindly face grew stern. The moment 
had come at last, then—and had found him as waver¬ 
ing of purpose as ever, though he had long expected it. 
Well, he did not care over-much for the lad, yet there 
was naught grave against him; and at all costs the 
little lass must be spared from experience of such 
bitter degradation as he had lived with these ten years 
past. If it had been Stephen Royd, now—if Stephen 
could have come with hands clean of trade and as fair 
a rent-roll as young Bancroft’s! But it was useless to 
give way to fancies. The lad was well enough, and 
able to give his daughter the comfort she had known 
at home—nay, more. What was amiss with his pro¬ 
posal ? 

Still the Squire did not speak. He seemed to be 


270 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


weighing some matter in his mind, some cross-wayed 
matter that was hard to settle, and when he spoke, it 
was hard to credit that this man of the few cold words 
and shrewd outlook upon his daughter’s happiness, was 
one with the courteous, stately gentleman whom moor- 
side gossip named over-tender for this rough world. 

“ I may give ‘ yes ’ or 4 no ’ to that,” he said at last. 
“ They say in Ling Crag and Marshcotes that my little 
maid will be rich one day; and wealth is apt to tempt 
men, as you know.” 

“ It has no temptations, Squire, for me,” broke in 
the other hotly. Only the softer side of his regard for 
Mistress Barbara was with him now, thanks to her 
smiles and the wine’s cogency; nor did he any way 
doubt his honesty in the assertion. 

“ Forgive me, but a father asks more than an idle 
speech or so when his maid’s happiness is in question. 
What of your power to give Barbara all that she has 
learned to look for ? ” 

“ My land should be warranty, sir, for that,” said 
Bancroft quietly. It was scarcely a propitious time, 
he thought, to show the wrong side of his affairs to 
Squire Cunliffe. 

The other looked him through and through. “ I 
would make Barbara penniless to-morrow,” he said, 
“ rather than see her wedded for her wealth.” 

“ Try me, Squire. Though she came to me with 
nothing, I should still be the happiest man in Marsh¬ 
cotes.” Bancroft of the Heights had a memory that 
could slip lightly through unpleasant matters; he had 
half forgotten already that his lands, as he called them, 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


271 


were worth little more to him than a few sheets of 
lawyer’s parchment. This sudden gravity and stern¬ 
ness of the Squire’s had taken him by surprise, and his 
one thought was to convince the old man of his love 
for little Barbara, a love which just now was passion¬ 
ate enough. 

Again the Squire smiled in the grim fashion that 
was so little like him. “ Have a care, lad! It is easy 
to make a hot speech, and easier still to rue it. Is it, 
in sober truth, all one to you whether Barbara has 
much or little ? ” 

“ No, it is not all one! ” cried Bancroft impetuously. 
“ I had rather she came to me with nothing in her 
slim white hands.” 

Squire Cunliffe gave him another straight glance, 
and nodded approvingly; then checked a curious flush, 
as of shame, that was creeping into his face. “ There 
is my hand on it,” he said. “ Win her if you can, and 
I w r ill do the little possible to bend a wayward lassie’s 
fancy,” he said. 

It might have been an hour later that Bancroft of 
the Heights rode through the moonlit courtyard, with 
the Squire’s cheery good-night still in his ears and the 
Squire’s promise in his mind. It was not his way to 
look for beauty beyond a maid’s face or the inside of a 
flagon; yet to-night he turned his head twice for an¬ 
other glance at the old Hall, brooding grey and still 
above its memories of dead passions, dead crimes, old 
love-tales that had long been told. The strip of garden 
underneath the windows, flanked by its round-topped 
wa ll—the horsing-steps—the dim mass of barn and 


272 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


mistals and stables that slept at the far end of the 
courtyard—all these had a word for Bancroft to-night 
—a new and tender word, though every line of the old 
place was known to him. 

“ It is a bonnie spot,” muttered Bancroft, as he set 
his nag to a trot; “ and I shall own it one day,” added 
that cool, prudent mind of his, which seemed to have 
no communion with his heart. 

Squire Cunliffe fastened the heavy door after his 
guest was gone. The light of the candle which he 
carried in one hand showed a grave face, and an older, 
than that which a moment since had smiled a farewell 
at Bancroft of the Heights; but he smoothed out the 
lines of trouble as he went into the parlour and found 
Barbara there, her head bent low above the book that 
was resting on her knee, so that she could better catch 
the firelight. 

“ What, reading by firelight? You’ll tire your eyes, 
lassie,” said the Squire, setting down his candle. 

She looked up with a quick smile. “ It was scarcely 
dark until a half-hour since, and then it seemed too 
late to light the candle, father.” 

“ Well, I did as much in my own young days, though 
there were fewer books to tempt one to spoil one’s eye¬ 
sight. What were you reading? ” 

He was walking up and down the room, with a pre¬ 
occupied and restless air that Barbara knew. 

“ Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,” she answered, 
holding up the book. 

“ Yes, yes,” the Squire murmured, with an effort to 
bring back his thoughts; “a quiet tale, and a restful. 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


2 73 

There is healing in such books, Babette, for life itself 
was never yet as restful.” 

Barbara lifted her face till the peat-glow shone full 
upon it, showing the serious eyes and the half-grave, 
half-smiling lips. 

“ But I do not like it, father,” she cried, shaking her 
head decisively. “ There’s so little in the story—sc 
little movement, so iittle life of any sort. See, I’ve 
read all but the last few pages, and I’ve found them 
all .alike—a little dreary, a little studied, and nothing 
but talk—nothing in the world but chatter such as 
our farm-girls would disdain—at the end of all one’s 
trouble.” 

The Squire smiled gently down at her eager face; 
she was young and he was old, and he realised afresh 
how deep a valley, of sorrow, hunger, restlessness— 
all that made up experience, with its late-ripening crop 
of dead-sea fruit—lay between them. She was young, 
this child of his, and she saw in action a refuge from 
life’s prison-round; but he was old, and he told him¬ 
self that action of the sort she craved led only to the 
same late-ripening crop of dead-sea fruit. For the 
Squire was weary beyond faith to-night, and further 
weariness awaited him, he knew, before the dawn 
should rise above the Wynyates gables. 

“ You’ll learn one day to like the quietness best,” he 
said. “ Quiet is a poppy-land, Babette, and books like 
these bring the same sleepy sense to one.” 

“ But, daddy, there’s never a midnight scamper, 
never a breath of the wind in one’s face, from the first 
page to the last. I cannot live for a day without the 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


274 

wind; I cannot find life in a book unless the sky is big 
above it, unless there’s the breadth of the hills and the 
sweep of a far-off sky-line to make the people in it 
liver 

Again the Squire glanced down at her; and across 
his own worn face there passed an after-light from the 
days that had seen his youth and all its bravery. He 
had scarcely understood till now how quick the Cun- 
liffe blood was in little Barbara’s veins. Once on a day 
he had known women from the outer world, and had 
learned something of their fashion; but Barbara had 
been reared in this lone upland house, had spent her 
childhood and her youth here, in the world that some 
call narrow and others wide—the world that had the 
long line of heath and sky for boundary, and a grey 
house, with all its intimate associations for central 
point. She had not the womanhood only, but some¬ 
thing of the manhood too, of the bygone generations 
in her blood; the grey old house, with its gables and its 
gardens and its guardian moor—the nooks and corners, 
the very knots and pattern of the grain in the oak 
wainscoting—the wild legends of the country-side, the 
tangled web of hate and passion, that clothed the bare 
hill-fields—all were a part of her by this. They were 
the hearth to which she constantly returned to warm 
herself after the breath of the naked moors had blown 
about her. She would go further than he had done, 
the Squire told himself; she had more of the wind in 
her, and to the end she would blow as she listed, never 
tiring on her path. 

“ Then there’s so much talk here of marriage, daddy 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


2 75 

—always marriage/’ she went on, laying a hand upon 
her book again. “ I think it rather wearies me.” 

“ Barbara,” said the Squire, coming to a sudden halt 
and watching the peat-glow on her face, “ what if I 
told you that a suitor has come to ask me for my little 
girl?” 

Her face had been turned to him, but she bent it 
now above her book. She had no thought of Bancroft, 
though he had lately sat in earnest converse with the 
Squire; in a flash her mind went back to that February 
night when she had sung at the spinet yonder to 
Stephen Royd, and had learned the true way of her 
heart. Then she thought of to-day, and of the strange 
glance which Royd had given her at parting. She 
knew not what she hoped, nor what she feared—only 
that the uncertainty was sweeter than anything which 
life had offered her as yet. 

“Why are you silent, child? Is it nothing to you 
that Mr. Bancroft seeks your hand ? ” 

“ It—it is not that, father,” she answered, still keep¬ 
ing her head bent. 

“ There! I have been over-sudden, and you are 
startled. You need fear nothing, child; when Mr. 
Bancroft asked me for your hand I bade him come to 
you about the matter by and by—and if he could gain 
your consent, I told him he should have my own.” 

She lifted her head now. “ Mr. Bancroft?” she 
echoed, in low, unhappy tones. “Mr. Bancroft? I 
do not understand, father.” 

“ Did you not guess what his errand was to-night? 
He has asked me, more than once, to give consent to 


2 7 6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


his suit, and I have always bidden him wait until your 
birthday. And now your birthday’s here, Babs, and— 
and Bancroft has my good wishes, all my good wishes, 
unless you let some whim step in between you.” 

“ Father, it is no whim that makes me draw back 
from Mr. Bancroft. He—he is scarcely—” 

“ Scarcely one of ourselves? That is on the sur¬ 
face, child, and there are reasons ”—the old man 
stopped embarrassed, and fidgeted with his snuff-box. 
He could not confess the true reason of his desire to 
bring about the match; he could only talk, in quiet per¬ 
suasive tones, of his own wishes, emphasising again 
and again the fact that his heart was set upon the 
match. Barbara answered little; nor did she say any¬ 
thing, when he had bidden her sleep over it and give 
him her answer on the morrow, except that she would 
do his bidding. Squire Cunliffe, after he had kissed 
her, turned with an air half guilty and half relieved. 
He went down the passage and into the room where 
they had lately supped. One flagon of wine was emp¬ 
tied but three parts or so, and this he locked up in the 
great oaken press, as any over-careful housewife might 
have done. He stayed awhile by the hearth, taking a 
pinch or two of snuff from the box on the mantelshelf 
and muttering to himself; put out the candles—all save 
the one he carried—closed and locked the door—went 
all through the house to see that every room was se¬ 
curely fastened—and, last of all, moved to the decrepit 
side-door that opened on the farm-yard. 

He put his hand on the key, but it was to unlock the 
door this time, not to secure it. His step, as he passed 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


277 


into the moonlight, was gentle, cautious, as though 
long habit of concealment had given it practised deft¬ 
ness. He crossed the yard—a tall, broad figure of a 
man, with stately carriage and head thrown back a 
little, as if to look the world between the eyes. A 
barn-owl, blinking at the moon from the gable oppo¬ 
site, greeted him with a solemn “ To-wit, to-woo!” 
And the Squire half nodded at the bird, absently; for 
the brown owl and he had met each other too often by 
moonlight or by starlight to be other than close friends. 
Straight the Squire had been till now; yet he seemed 
to bend, to grow older and weaker in a moment, as he 
moved to the foot of a ladder set against the wall and 
mounted it. 

“ To-wit, to-woo! ” screamed the owl, as Squire 
Cunliffe disappeared within the gable-door. No other 
sound broke the stillness, save now and then a cry of 
grouse or curlew from some far-off corner of the moor; 
no other sound, unless a watcher from the yard below 
could catch the light movement of feet across the gable 
room above. Then, on the sudden, there came a clatter, 
as of heavy metal dropped by a weary or a careless 
hand; and after that the old death-like silence, scarce 
lessened by that constant walking to-and-fro across the 
boards above. 

Tim o’ Tab’s came over the stile that lay between the 
farm-yard and the moor. He stood awhile at the foot 
of the ladder, and peered up at the light that filtered 
through the cracked and weather-smeared glass. 

“ Poor Squire! ” he muttered. “ Nay, it fair goes to 
th’ heart of a graceless loon like myseln to see sich 


278 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


goings on, an’ niver be able to stir so mich as a finger¬ 
tip to help him. Lord save us, but I wonder how he 
lasts—an’ him so spruce an’ full o’ spirits whativer time 
o’ day ye chance on him.” 

The owl, disliking Tim’s intrusion, screamed volubly 
from the gable end. 

“ Well, tha’rt reet, old owl,” said Tim; “ ’tis time I 
looked to them snares on Maister Bancroft’s land. So 
gooid-neet, Squire, an’ luck go wi’ ye.” 

Tim o’ Tab’s glanced once again at the upper win¬ 
dow, sighed impatiently, and disappeared, as by magic, 
into the moon-haze of the moor. 

But the house of Wynyates still slept on, grey and 
tranquil; too many secrets it had in keeping to let a 
good night’s rest be spoiled by the knowledge of this 
last mystery of all. Only the barn-owl was wakeful— 
the owl and old Squire Cunliffe. 

Barbara, meanwhile, had been vaguely conscious of 
the Squire’s movements below her, though she heard 
the creak of the old boards under his footfall, the rattle 
of the wine-decanter as he replaced it in the cupboard, 
as if such sounds were very far away, remote from 
present interest. She had closed her door, had passed 
the dainty bed, with its carved woodwork and its cur¬ 
tains of white muslin, and had seated herself at the 
wide-open window. If she could not get out on to 
the heath when trouble pressed, she must sit at the open 
window and feel the moor’s cool breath upon her cheek. 

To-night, though, there was comfort nowhere; not 
in the warm lush fragrance of the gathering summer; 
not in the glamour of young moonlight glinting on the 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


279 

dew-tipped leafage; not in the landrail’s never-resting 
night-song, which rarely failed to wake a score of 
gracious memories. All was perplexity; for duty was 
at war now with her own right judgment. Her very 
thoughts drew back from Bancroft of the Heights, now 
that they met him at such close quarters. How could 
she marry him? How could she? 

“Father, it is not right! You should never have 
asked it of me, never! ” she cried, with a fierceness that 
left her, soon almost as it came, to the old sense of 
doubt and difficulty. 

Again, as she sat beside the casement—the leaded 
panes of which looked out upon the mistal-yard—she 
heard a footfall on the floor beneath, and after that the 
opening and the shutting of a door. 

Instinctively she grew alert. It was habit with her 
by this time to watch over her father’s goings and com¬ 
ings, and her love for him, protecting, anxious, all but 
motherly, still held first place, or seemed to do. She 
knew what was meant by that opening and shutting of 
the door; and that the Squire was minded to spend 
another night in toil. 

Soon there came the flicker of flint on steel, and then 
a shaft of candle-light shone out across the yard from 
the one narrow window of the room above the laithe. 
A great longing came on her to know the nature of his 
occupation—to know it, not for curiosity’s sake, but to 
the end that she might help him in some way. He was 
so lonely, and yet she wished to be more than a fair- 
weather friend to this father who had been all in all 
to her, if he would but share his secret with her. 


28 o 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


All in all? Yes, he had been that, until Royd heard 
her sing her heart out to him one night not long ago. 
And she was to marry Bancroft of the Heights? Not 
her heart only, but her pride, revolted from him; yet 
never until now had she understood how close was the 
bond between the old Squire and herself. She might 
revolt, she would revolt for awhile; the idea was in¬ 
tolerable as yet; but something told her that in the end 
—unless some chance undreamed of came to free her— 
she would yield to the wishes of the man who was 
working yonder, in loneliness and gloom, through the 
nights that she was wont to spend in quiet sleep. 

“ Poor father! Poor, poor daddy! ” she whispered, 
her eyes full of tears. 

And then she turned away, and turned again, and, 
“ It must be as he wishes,” she said, “ as he wishes— 
and yet I cannot ” Again a wave of passionate rebel¬ 
lion swept over her. “ It is too much to ask! I 
cannot.” 

Little by little the thought of Stephen Royd crept in; 
little by little, not knowing that she did it, she began 
to set him side by side with Bancroft, and to measure 
the stature of the two. Then with a sudden longing, 
that was almost fierce, her heart went out to Royd, 
went out in its perplexity and loneliness and asked 
his help. Surely, surely she could marry none but 
Stephen, if he needed her; and if he did nort—why, 
then, she was not meant for any other man. Bar¬ 
bara was humble to-night, sincere with herself and un¬ 
ashamed of it. For she had read that one masterful 
glance of Royd’s as she stood beside him in the mill- 


A RUFFLER’S WOOING 


28! 

yard that afternoon; and it had made many a dark mat¬ 
ter clear. 

For awhile she stood there, dreaming, while the corn¬ 
crake plained without among the meadow-grass, and 
the wind came stealthy from the moor, and the sickle 
moon looked down on her from over the grey roofs of 
the mistals. 

The candle-light from out the old Squire’s work-room 
was striving still with the young moon’s quieter radi¬ 
ance. 

“ Have I been busy with my own discontent? ” she 
murmured, after a long silence. “ Nay, daddy! I must 
show a braver heart, I think.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 

S TEPHEN ROYD, returning from Colne at five 
of an afternoon in early July, drew rein at the 
Herders Inn, as he had done five months ago 
and more. His thoughts had been busy with his 
own prosperity, with Barbara, with the house that must 
surely be his own before the year was out; and a kindly 
impulse moved him to stay for a gossip with Lavrock, 
and to inquire if things were going better with his 
friend of other days. 

“ I’ve come for a crack, Lavrock,” he said, finding 
the landlord in the bar. 

Lavrock glanced shrewdly at him; he had not heard 
such a hearty ring in Royd’s voice this many a day. 

“ An’ I’m glad to see ye, Maister Royd,” he an¬ 
swered. “ I’ve time an’ to spare for talk, more’s the 
pity.” 

“ So times grow worse instead of better, eh? ” 

The other was silent for awhile; he was a proud man, 
Lavrock, in his way, though shiftless, and he did not 
trust his voice when he had to speak of his own failures. 

“ Maister Stephen,” he said at last, reverting to the 
name by which he had known Royd long ago, “ Maister 
Stephen, I niver axed to share yond Cunliffe luckless¬ 
ness I’ve telled ye on so often; but I share it all th’ 
282 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 283 

same. There’s Wyecollar Hall down yonder, empty o’ 
all save mice an’ rattens; an’ I look at my own life, 
an’ theer’s th’ same pictur—nowt but mice an’ rattens, 
an’ gooid stuff gone to ruin. I can’t tell how it is; I 
war a proper man o’ my hands once, an’ I’ve followed 
my inn, an’ followed my farm, as weel as I knaw how 
to—an’ what’s at th’ end on’t? An ailing wife, an’ 
starving childer, an’ a meal-bin as empty as our bellies. 
Ye loaned me a matter o’ fifty pund i’ th’ fore-end o’ th’ 
year, if ye call to mind.” 

Royd nodded. “ No matter of the loan, Lavrock; 
call it a gift, for old times’ sake,” he said, in a kindly 
voice. 

“ It’ll hev to be, I’m feared—for it’s goan. It stopped 
a gap for awhile, an’ then it war swallowed up i’ debt. 
Nay, it’s Cunliffe luck, I tell ye, Maister Royd; an’ it 
sticks like limestun muck to them as is cursed wi’t.” 

Royd’s mind went back in a flash to that night at 
Wynyates, when Barbara Cunliffe herself had voiced 
the self-same superstition; and, because of this, he held 
back the mockery with which he would have met avowal 
of any such belief. 

“ But you’re no Cunliffe, Lavrock,” he said; “ why 
saddle yourself with it ? ” 

“ A tired horse doesn’t saddle itseln,” answered the 
other drily. “ It feels th’ girths tightening, an’ it sees 
no way to help it. Mebbe I niver telled ye I war foster- 
brother to owd Squire Cunliffe up at Wynyates? Ay, 
though he looks an owder man nor me. An’ I’ve getten 
it in me, Maister Stephen—th’ Ghostly Rider, an’ th’ 
lucklessness, an’ th’ moan of a dreary wind through 


284 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


empty passages—they’re all bred i’ th’ marrow o’ me, 
an’ it’s no use thinking to stand up agen ’em.” 

“ Come, come, you’re out of heart with worry, and 
you live over lonely, Lavrock. There’s no bottom to 
this talk of lucklessness, or why should the Squire him¬ 
self be prosperous? ” 

“ They say he is, an’ I knaw nowt to th’ contrary; 
but ye mark my words, he’ll fall under th’ load one day 
same as I hev done. Even now he’s getten a darkish 
secret i’ his life, an’ that doesn’t look so fearful like 
prosperity. An’ when he rides by here, as he does time 
an’ time, an’ stays to drink my health i’ his proud up¬ 
standing way, I look varry narrowly i’ his face, an’ I 
can see it getting owder—owder nor it’s any right to 
be. I can see summat else there, too.” 

Royd, despite himself, was interested. So assured, 
so leisurely, so quiet of speech, was this keeper of a 
moor-top tavern; and he talked of the unseen things as 
other men talked of wool-packs, cloth, and such like 
palpable commodities. 

“ You were reared on silence, Lavrock, and it breeds 
dreams,” he said. “ Squire Cunliffe looked in hale 
good health when last I saw him—and that was yester¬ 
day, as he rode home from Quarter Sessions.” 

“ Ye hevn’t th’ eye to read sich matters, Maister 
Stephen; ye niver hev hed, or ye’d be poorer nor ye are 
to-day. There’s a colour i’ a man’s face—sometimes 
it comes sooin, an’ whiles it comes late i’ life—but it’s 
no more to be mista’en nor th’ colour o’ yond gate. Ill- 
luck grey, we call’t, an’ Squire Cunliffe hed it t’other 
day as clear as iver I seed it. Mistak it? Not if ye’ve 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 285 

once seed it ? I seed it i’ th’ face o’ Squire’s father th’ 
day afore he deed—he war killed hunting, ye’ll call to 
mind. I seed it i’ my brother’s face—him ’at lived near 
neighbour to Parson Horrocks—afore he deed o’ th’ 
Black Fever.” 

“ He is dead? ” put in Royd, with ready sympathy. 
“ I am sorry, Lavrock.” 

“ Ay, he’s goan, an’ his little lass, an’ all. She war 
killed wi wark, poor bairn—came home fro’ Goit Miln, 
she did, two neets ago, an’ dropped at her mother’s 
doorstun; an’ my brother’s wife came running out to 
see what ailed her; an’ she oppened her een once, an’ 
smiled i’ a weariful way, an’ she says, ‘ I’ll niver hev to 
waken, mother, ony more,’ says she. An’ wi’ that she 
gi’es a sigh, an’ turns her face to th’ floor, an’ dees. It’s 
a bonnie trade, is wool, Maistcr Royd, an’ I oft wonder 
what Jasper Royd, your father, wod say to ye if he war 
quick aboon ground.” 

Royd let the rebuke go by him. He saw, as clearly 
as if it had happened yesterday, the figure of a child, 
swaying and stumbling up the road that led from Goit 
Mill to Marshcotes; he heard again the sad refrain, 
“ Is’t time to waken, father?” as Parson Horrocks 
swung her to his saddle; and now, it seemed, the child 
was dead—dead, after months of such journeyings from 
Goit Mill. And he, meanwhile, had been bending all 
his energies toward money-making; he had been covet¬ 
ing house and lands, while the ambition of his neigh¬ 
bours was narrowed to the one fierce strife for bread. 

“ I stopped a strike some few weeks back, Lavrock,” 
he said abruptly. “ They listened to my talk, and found 


286 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


it to their liking. Why did they not rather knock me 
on the head, for good example’s sake? ” 

“ Because ye’ve a heart i’ your body, an’ they knaw 
ye’re better nor your trade. Ye’ll hev to quit it by an’ 
by, Maister Stephen—ye’re a bad pair, when all’s said, 
to run i’ harness.” 

Royd was already ashamed of his quick outburst. 
To-morrow—nay, to-night—when he was back 
amongst it all, he would return, he knew, to the old 
singleness of purpose, the old deafness to suggestions 
that weakened his ambition. His work in the world 
was to win back the Heights—not for himself only, 
but perhaps for Barbara too. 

“ I’d a heart once on a time, Lavrock,” he said 
brusquely; “■ but it hampered me after I left the old 
home, and I threw it down by the wayside. Well, I 
must be jogging. Bring me something for the good 
of the house, and let my nag have a sip of meal and 
water.” 

The landlord looked to the horse’s needs first, accord¬ 
ing to the complexion of his mind; and while he was 
away, Royd paced up and down the room, wondering 
how he could make a certain offer to Lavrock without 
injury to the older man’s self-respect. For success, 
whether he admitted it or no—success, and the hope of 
Barbara—was finding a hidden vein of kindliness in 
Stephen Royd. 

“ Lavrock,” he said, as the other came in again with 
his lackadaisical, long stride, “ if things go well with 
me, I hope one day to get a bit of land again.” 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 287 

“ I telled ye as mich just now; an’ I’m glad to hear 
it,” said Lavrock, setting down a measure of rum. 

“ You know the way of sheep, and beasts, and upland 
pasture-grass. How if you came to me and rubbed my 
memory bright on all these points ? ” 

The man’s whole face and bearing changed; he had 
struggled hard, and the prospect of wage-earning 
brought his manhood back. 

“ I axe nowt better, Maister Stephen. To see ye i’ 
your rightful place again, an’ to hev food to gi’e my 
childer—nay, nay, it’d be heaven afore its time, wod 
yond.” 

“ What are your debts ? ” Royd went on. 

“ Eighty pund,” said the other, with a quick glance 
of surprise. 

“ I can’t hope to leave trade yet, but I want to have 
you ready, Lavrock, against the day I come to my own 
again. I take your debts, and I pay you a bailiff’s 
salary from this moment. Leave the inn, if it hampers 
you; keep it, if you can make it pay its way, until I 
need you.” 

“ But, Maister Stephen, this is charity—just charity.” 

“ Go to the deuce, Lavrock! You taught me a lot of 
what I know, and there’s no charity between old friends. 
You’re down. I’m up—it’s all the throw of a coin.” 

“ I willun’t tak it! ” said Lavrock stoutly. “ I’ll 
come to ye as bailiff, an’ be glad on’t; but I’ve not fallen 
to charity yet.” 

“ You’ll do just as I please,” said the other coolly, 
as he drank off his measure and laid a coin on the table. 


288 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ You'll come to me at Hazel Mill to-morrow—as my 
bailiff, you understand—and I’ll dress your jacket for 
you if you don’t.” 

Stephen Royd would have been the first to sneer at 
any man who gave conscience-money. Yet in a sense, 
and apart altogether from his real liking for Lavrock, 
his offer was one of conscience-money. He was richer 
than he need be, while others starved, and in defiance 
of all his own rules of prudence and of common-sense, 
he had made restitution when a chance of restitution 
showed itself; he blamed himself on the way home, as 
his way was, but he left one man the lighter-hearted for 
his folly. 

Five months ago he had ridden home along this very 
road from Wyecollar to Ling Crag, and had held his 
head as squarely up to meet the world—but with a cer¬ 
tain sullen defiance that was lacking now. The peewit 
had been a brother Ishmael to him then; but now he 
listened to the larks. The very moor seemed to have 
altered its mind with his; the bleak sand-road no longer 
stretched between drifts of the melting snow and wastes 
of the ragged ling; heath-bells were swelling in the bud, 
and bracken covered many a naked face of peat, and the 
far hills lay in a haze of lilac warmth and dreamed of 
tenderness. Mile by mile, as he rode, Royd watched 
the moor’s face, and warmed to the friendship that had 
softened its harsh temper in keeping with his own 
change of hope and of ambition. What was all Lav- 
rock’s tale of lucklessness ? Man was the maker of his 
luck, and the ghosts that roamed through the fancies 



HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 289 


of the hilltop folk were out of touch with the sweat of 
human labour and its recompense. 

Yet, even as he passed by Sorrowful Water, the first 
quiet forerunners of a weather-change came riding the 
topmost surface of the pool. Its waters, clear before, 
grew dull and muddy for the moment; the bold reflec¬ 
tions of rock and heathery slope were blurred as if the 
water were glass that a man had blown upon; the little 
waves got up beneath the restless wind, and widened 
in grey circles to the shore, and snapped at the pebbles 
of the beach. Royd knew the sign; in the old moor- 
lore this change of standing water, so vague, and so 
soon passed, was due to the tread of the goblin feet 
which ran before a storm; and sure it was that its 
prophecy of ill weather soon to come had never failed. 

“ The summer is broken up at last,” said Royd regret¬ 
fully, as he turned his glance to the hills, and saw that 
their lilac haze was changing to a wan, grey mist. 
“ Well, we’ve had more of it than we could look for.” 

He rode forward with a shade less eagerness. The 
moor still held the sunlight, and the sky was still a 
fleecy blue; the change in all these things was rather 
felt than seen; but a change there was, and this com¬ 
rade-land was no longer one with the horseman—one 
in hope, and one in present gladness. Royd felt his 
own humour saddened; he laughed at himself for bend¬ 
ing so to a hint of coming rain; but he was as the long 
moor-generations had made him, as wind and an open 
sky and the shifting humours of the seasons had trained 
him, and he could no more escape contagion from the 


290 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


weather than the lark could help singing as it rode the 
sunrays, or the lapwing cease to glance wailing down 
the van ward storm. 

Rugged, unbending, and unafraid, whenever there 
was work to be done by hand or head; a child of the 
roofless hilltops, when the heart that felt gained now 
and then a moment’s mastery over the hand that 
wrought; that was Stephen Royd, the land-lover turned 
merchant, the free man trapped in the slavery of toil; 
and to-night, as he reached his mill and heard the gath¬ 
ering wind come whispering down the dene, the old 
dreads of his race, grown fat with feeding on the win¬ 
ter storms and winter dark, came back on him and 
would not be gainsaid. 

He stood looking up at the valley for awhile, to 
where, at the jagged meeting-place of moor and dene, 
a yellow band of sunlight pierced the clouds—the sun¬ 
shine that Marshcotes Moor was to see little of for 
many a day to come. Then on the sudden he shook 
himself, as if to rid him of a burden, and led his horse 
to stable. 

“ I’ve not seen Parson Horrocks lately,” he mut¬ 
tered, as he brushed the sleek roan-coat. “ He’ll rid me 
of the vapours if any man can do it. What think’st 
thou, lad?” 

The roan turned a pair of friendly eyes on him; for 
the dumb things liked Stephen Royd better than did 
his fellow-men; and in return he favoured them with 
a greater measure of his confidence. 

“ Ay, I’ll go to him,” Royd went on, “ and tell him 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 291 


how the world is prospering with me. What ails me, 
to go seeing ghosts at such a time ? ” 

He went indoors to his own frugal meal, and then 
set off, under a gaining moon, to cross to Marshcotes. 
As he went in at the gate of the Parsonage, a woman 
came down the steps and brushed against him as she 
passed—a thin little woman, with a shawl huddled 
dose about her, despite the warmth of the summer's 
night. The mill-master was not quick to give charity, 
but there was a haplessness about the figure that took 
his hand instinctively to his breeches' pocket. The 
woman stopped, and looked at the crown-piece thrust 
into her hand; and her starved face lightened slowly 
with a sort of stupid wonder. For they said in Marsh¬ 
cotes that Stephen Royd was a straight man and a 
clean-lived; but they said also that he was a hard man 
at parting with his money. 

“ I've done nowt for’t,” said the woman simply. 

“Done nothing?” retorted the other brusquely, for 
he was always half-ashamed of his own charities. 
“ You’ve starved for it, at any rate, and it will buy 
you a full meal or two.” 

Her face changed again, and a wolfish, hunted look 
was in it as she gripped Royd’s arm. “ What do I 
want wi' your brass ? ” she cried. “ It comes ower late, 
Stephen Royd; an’ it's ye an’ sich as ye that I’ve to 
thank for’t.” 

He tried to shake her off, for the Royd blood re¬ 
sented accusation at all times. “ I do not know you,” 
he said coldly. 


292 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Nay, but I knaw ye. Ye’re a master-weaver; ye 
own a factory, where tlT little childer are moiled an’ 
flogged to death,—ay, ye may harden your proud face 
an’ say ye know nowt o’ sich things, but ye’re tarred 
wi’t’ same brush, all on ye. God’s curse on ye, Stephen 
Royd! An’ God’s curse on all who mak their bread o’ 
human flesh. It comes ower late,” she broke off, rock¬ 
ing her shrunken body to and fro, and staring at the 
crown-piece in her palm. 

Royd could not but soften to her misery. “ What 
ails you?” he asked quietly. “ There’s heart even in 
a master-weaver, when once you get at it.” 

She did not hear him; her grasp had tightened on 
the coin, and a pitiable cunning crept into her eyes as 
she moved sideways off from Royd. 

“ ’Twill go to burying th’ bairn; ’twill go to buying 
a coffin o’ gooid deal wooid,” she muttered. 

He put out a hand to detain her, and she, thinking 
that he meant to recall his gift, ran down across the 
gravestones, slipping and stumbling on the smooth 
moss as she went. Royd went slowly up the Par¬ 
sonage steps, and stood awhile on the threshold be¬ 
fore knocking; for he had come to tell the Parson of 
his prosperity, and this wild hint of tragedy had 
brought his mind back sharply to the dark under-side 
of trade. 

“ Why, ’tis Stephen! Come in, lad, and be sure of 
a warm welcome,” said Parson Horrocks, who had 
come in person to answer his guest’s knock. 

Royd’s greeting was graver than usual, however; 
for the memory of the scene at the gate was with him 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 293 

still, and he was realising that had he had the mothers 
to deal with, not the combers themselves, he would have 
failed to avert the strike which had threatened him so 
short a while ago. 

“ There was a weary-looking body going out of your 
gate as I came in,” he said, soon as the Parson and he 
were seated on either side of the hearth. 

“ And well might she look weary,”—the Parson’s 
face had lost its wonted ruddiness, and there were deep 
lines of pity round about the mouth,—“ well might she 
look weary, Stephen, with the tale she had to bring 
me.” 

“A tale of want?” he said coldly, because of the 
crown-piece he had given in haste. 

“Want? Ay, bitter want, and bitterer shame to 
back it. Look ye, lad, I encouraged you to take to 
trade; I laughed with you at the scoffers, when they 
said a hunting chip of the Royds would never sit easy 
on a wool-pack; I held by you when the gentry looked 
askance—and, now I’m almost sorry for it.” 

“ I am not sorry,” put in the other quietly. 

“ Ay, but the byways of this trade ? They stink, 
lad; and every day I live some fresh proof of rotten¬ 
ness seems to come to me. You deal fair, Stephen, but 
do you know what horrors are countenanced here in 
Marshcotes ? ” 

“ And more of them in Bradford, Halifax—wher¬ 
ever mill-roofs hide iniquities. Yes, I know some of 
it.” 

“ The woman who was here with me just now—she 
has been proud in her time, and for pride’s sake she 


294 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


had carried her sorrows with a dumb tongue. But 
to-night she came to me because she must have human 
sympathy of some sort. She’s a widow, Stephen, and 
childless now. Do you recall the night we rode from 
Wynyates and overtook a little lass upon the road? ” 

Royd glanced sharply up. “ So it was Lavrock’s 
widow who met me at the gate just now? I heard of 
the child’s death at the Herders Inn this afternoon.” 

“ Childless, lad, and all for sake of trade.” 

The Parson halted, and his voice shook a little; for 
he had just listened to the tale at first hand, and he 
remembered every note of anguish in the mother’s 
voice as she told it to him. 

“ I know what you would say,” put in Royd bitterly. 
“ The old tale of overwork and under-feeding? Do 
you wonder, Parson, that I try to shut my eyes at 
times? I see too much of it, and there is nothing to 
be done—” 

“Nothing to be done?” cried the other, gripping 
the arms of his chair and leaning toward Royd with 
passionate eagerness. “ There’s Wilberforce, and 
Oastler, and a dozen others, all crying on the housetops 
that it is shameful to sell black men into slavery; and 
they have done something. How if men get up and 
cry out upon this English slavery? How if we begin 
to clean our own dark places, Stephen ? ” 

“ They lie too close. These anti-slavery folk want 
more romance before they give their sympathy. I tell 
you, Parson, if fifty men told all there was to tell to¬ 
morrow—told it in the streets for everyone to hear— 
they would be named liars for their pains.” 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 295 

“ For awhile, lad—and then the truth would make 
its own way, as truth always does.” 

“ And the gently nurtured folk who sob behind 
their cambric handkerchiefs when they hear of the 
wrongs done in the West Indies—would they soil their 
clothes, think ye, by going through a factory? Not 
they. The factories lie over close—I say it again, Par¬ 
son—and only the mill-owners and the poor know what 
goes on behind the four bare walls.” 

“ And the parsons—they know. This widow-body 
who was here just now, her child has been ailing for 
six weeks past, but that was no excuse for idleness, for 
the bairn was apprenticed to its master. Apprenticed, 
lad—a word that has got a hard new meaning since 
men mocked God’s simplicity by inventing things of 
wood and steel to do man’s proper labour.” 

Royd shifted in his seat impatiently; he held another 
view altogether of the machinery question, and looked 
beyond the present squalor to the new world of possi¬ 
bilities that machinery had opened up. But it was use¬ 
less, as he knew from old experience, to argue with 
Parson Horrocks on such a topic; for the Parson, lib¬ 
eral as he was in his outlook on most matters, was 
old-fashioned to a fault in others. The Parson, too— 
Royd could not realise this altogether—had seen those 
years of the last century which had been the happiest 
the working-man was ever like to know; he had seen 
the new order creep in, had seen misery and vice ad¬ 
vance with equal steps; and he had prayed, out on the 
open moor with none but the night-birds and the stars 
to listen, that this upland parish—the cherished child 


296 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


of his old age—might keep in the old, wind-free ways, 
and hold to the staunch old faiths that had kept Marsh- 
cotes sweet through fret and travail of the centuries. 

“ The old order will pass,” said Royd bluntly,—“ it 
will pass as surely as the full ear succeeds the blade.” 

“ But the blade is mildewed, lad,” answered the 
other, following a farming-simile that came naturally 
alike to the man of trade and the man of prayer. 
“ There’s no good thing can come out of the deeds 
the new order countenances. The children sat in the 
sunshine once at cottage-doors, spinning the wool; but 
now too many of them never see the sun—they go to 
work before he rises, and return long after he has set, 
like the poor waif whose tale I heard just now. Listen, 
Stephen! ’Twill do no mill-owner harm to hear such 
matters for the twentieth time. She had been ailing, 
as I said, this bairn of six, she needed rest, and good 
new milk, that once was at any child’s command in 
Marshcotes here. Instead, they made her work eigh¬ 
teen hours out of the twenty-four in a mill that you and 
I both know of; her hands refused their task at last, 
and the overseer lashed her till the pain drove her for¬ 
ward once again. Her body was empty all this while 
of food, and when sickness mastered her, she was lashed 
again—lashed till the blood dripped red upon the wool 
at her feet. For three nights she did not come home; 
she was too weak to walk the two miles, and crept 
among the wool to sleep when the day’s work was done; 
on the fourth night she tried to reach home, and fell 
at the roadside, and they brought her, cold, with the 
red marks of the lash on her, to her mother’s cottage.” 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 297 

“ That was the overseer’s doing. The master never 
used the lash, I warrant,” put in Royd. 

The other glanced at him and shook his head; it 
was not like Royd to put in a false plea. “ No, for the 
master pays the overseer to do it—and watches while 
it’s done,” he said. 

Royd got to his feet and stood above the Parson. 
Patience had grown to be habit with him, but now and 
then the old headstrong spirit leaped out, the hotter 
for restraint. 

“ I have my way to make, Parson,” he cried. “ I 
have chosen my road, and I’ll follow it though all the 
masters in the parish make trade a byword and a 
scandal. I know such tales are true—nay, I could tell 
you worse—and unless I can shut my mind fast down 
on them, they’ll kill the work in me.” 

“ Soft, lad,” said the old Parson, growing quiet di¬ 
rectly he saw need for it. “ Not all the masters are 
so; there are but two, thanks be to God, in all Marsh- 
cotes and Ling Crag. It is for you, and such as you, 
to show that trade has its clean roads to wealth; it 
is for you to carry a gospel abroad—” 

“ You mistake,” said Royd, with a quick frown, 
“you mistake, Parson. I am no evangelist, and if I 
keep my hands clean it is because to my thinking it 
pays to keep them so.” 

“ Now, then, I like thee that way, Stephen,” cried 
the other, with something of his wonted cheeriness. 
“ You cannot quarrel with the best friend you have— 
and that’s myself—for I will not let you; and as for 
your hardness—d’ye think I’d credit it? Bless me, 


298 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


I am growing old, there’s not a doubt of it. There’s 
a bottle been warming by the hearth this half-hour past, 
and I never set a glass beside you, Stephen.” 

The Parson tapped his snuff-box and took a pinch 
before filling his guest a measure. “ I need not ask if 
times are good with you ? ” he said, with abrupt change 
of topic, “ for they name it a standing wonder that your 
men still work for you when all the other masters have 
had to whistle for their labour.” 

^ Times are good, sir—though there’s risk just now 
of failure with so many mills lying idle.” 

“ What of this Booth of Goit Mill, of whom we were 
talking a while back ? He has kept his looms going, so 
it seems.” 

“ Ay, but it is rumoured there is little doing under 
all the show; I trust there may be—for he’s deeper in 
my debt than I care to think of.” 

“ Then pray that the money never comes to you,” 
flashed the Parson. “ Let yourself be beggared, lad, 
and be glad of it, rather than touch his ill-gotten gains. 
There, there! I’m all on the one string to-night, 
Stephen, as I said. You’ve heard the gossip touching 
Bancroft of the Heights? ” he broke off, with a sudden 
glance at Royd. 

“ I hear that he seems anxious to give me a chance 
of foreclosing on the mortgages, if high living will 
ensure it. I hear, too, that he is paying court to little 
Barbara—and I feel tempted to laugh, sir, at his inno¬ 
cence in thinking he could win her.” 

“ I, too, have heard rumours; and the old Squire, as 
I know, is keen set upon the match.” 


HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 299 

“ Squire Cunliffe anxious for the match ? ” cried 
Royd dumfounded. 

“ Ay, though his reasons are as dark as Lostwithens 
Bog. Bancroft? I had as lief see her wedded to a 
groom—for his father before him was little better, and 
the strain has not mended with the second generation.” 

“ There’s little chance of such a wedding. Barbara 
is a Cunliffe, Parson, and she—” 

“ Barbara is a woman, Stephen, and there’s no de¬ 
pending on her judgment. Well, ’twill do no great 
harm to a certain master-weaver, whom I know, if, 
if—” 

“ You think little Barbara —our little Barbara, whom 
we have watched and worshipped since her childhood 
—would stoop so low? ” Royd cried with sudden pas¬ 
sion. 

“ Not I, if you must have the truth. Rumour is 
growing big, and the Squire, as I said, approves the 
match—but it is out of question altogether.” 

Royd was silent, and by and by he rose to leave. 
Parson Horrocks, according to old habit, walked to 
the gate with his guest, and they stood looking out 
across the burial-ground. 

The older man was quiet for awhile; then he turned 
quickly. “ Do you remember, Stephen, what we talked 
of long ago in this same place ? ” 

“ Yes, of the men who purchased pauper children 
from the workhouses. Well, they are brutes, Parson, 
and they prosper; what then? Life is a mixture of 
cross-purposes, and ins-and-outs, and roads that seem 
to lead nowhither.” 


300 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ He that harrieth the pauper to his death shall 
die a pauper. What, did I once say faith could have 
its doubts for any man? Why, then, I lied; for 
faith is strong and sure—faith in the reward of right¬ 
doing, faith in the punishment of such brute wicked¬ 
ness as defiles the moorside here.” x 

The old man’s voice was strangely deep and strangely 
sorrowful, but Royd was gay of mood to-night; and 
he would not yield to the influence that had moulded 
him in boyhood and in manhood. When his way 
showed smooth at last, was he to turn aside with 
nice questions as to the methods of trade—questions 
which he had threshed out here with the Parson so often 
and so thoroughly? 

“ That is sound business, sir,” he said lightly, “ as 
well as sound theology. He who hires pauper labour 
can never prosper.” 

“ How so?” 

“ Contented labour is the best tool for a master—the 
other breaks in his hands when he most needs it.” 

“ Stephen,” said Parson Horrocks, laying a hand on 
his arm, “ do not lay every thing to a selfish cause. I 
love you, lad, and I would keep the deeper faith alive 
in you.” 

Royd softened to the plea, as he could not fail to do. 

“ When have you failed, sir? Never, to my recollec¬ 
tion. When I brought my lad’s doubts to you, you 
comforted me; when I grew sick at heart with work 
and failure, you bade me see the light ahead; you were 
always working for my betterment, Parson, since I 
recall anything at all.” 




HOW THE SUMMER TURNED TO RAIN 301 

“ Strange that such things should be—and I remem¬ 
ber Marshcotes when every man was his own master, 
and every child a willing and free labourer/’ murmured 
the Parson. “Yet now they buy the souls and bodies 
of little children—nay, there are middlemen in this as 
other trades, and he who needs labour buys from 
him who gets his children by the score from work- 
houses. Mill-masters, workhouse-masters, middlemen 
—they all play for their own hand, Stephen; and the 
workhouse, when it sells, makes a condition that one 
daft-witted child shall be taken off their hands with 
every twenty sane children. What, in God’s name, 
chances to that one luckless imbecile? Have you ever 
asked yourself the question, Stephen ? ” 

Royd shook his head. He had known that the fact 
was so, but he had not stopped to ask himself the ques¬ 
tion outright. 

“ Well, good-night, lad. It frets you, all this talk, 
and I have shown myself a sorry host. Come soon 
again, and I will show a fairer humour to you.” 

Yet such talks, if they fretted Royd, were also strong 
allies to that under-self of his which showed so rarely 
through the harder crust. It was by aid of such tales, 
indeed, that reform, so soon to come, was already 
growing in the dark; but neither Royd nor Parson 
Horrocks guessed as much. 


CHAPTER XV 


A combers' holiday 

T HERE was poetry in the life of the moorside 
combers, and at no time more, perhaps, than 
when they left work for a whole summer’s 
day and went up some wooded dene or other, with 
stewpot, fiddle, and barrel of October ale, to keep one 
of those Arcadian holidays which came so often in their 
lives, and which, it seemed, had need of slight excuse, 
or none at all, so long as their hearts were set upon 
the frolic. 

Hazel Dene was their meeting-place this morning 
and the blue moor-sky looked down on them as they 
followed the path beside the stream—men in fustian 
and velveteen, matrons in sober homespun, lassies in 
print gowns, with stomachers of red or yellow, bairns 
of ten and lesser bairns of two or three or five, with 
red limbs showing above their rough grey stockings. 
Shackleton was here, forgetful altogether by this time 
of the knock-down blow that Royd had given him; the 
same lean faces, and merry onies, which had shown at 
the Ling Crag tavern not long ago, showed here to-day, 
with sunlight on them now instead of shadow, and 
laughter in the voices which lately had threatened to 
break into storm. 


302 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3°3 


“ It's well to be the workmen, not the masters,” 
laughed Royd, who was standing at his door as they 
went by. 

“ Ay, time an’ time—when theer’s laking on; but not 
when pay-day comes,” laughed Shackleton. “ Are ye 
thrang this morn, Maister Royd? For we’d be fain 
to see ye up i’ th’ dene, if ye’d nobbut join us, like.” 

“ Look for me by and by, then, Shackleton—say 
when your stewpot begins to simmer on the fire.” 

“ Well, it’s noan a bad hour to come in, if ye axe 
me; an’ we’ll hev summat to your liking, maister, if 
I knaw owt. We’ve earned our holiday, I reckon,” he 
added drily. “ For yond wheel wod be rare an’ quiet 
if ye hedn’t knocked one or two on us heels ower head.” 

“ Ay, it was the only way to drive sense into you,” 
laughed Royd, as he went down Smithbank. 

He stayed for a word with most of the groups which 
he met on his way to Water Lane; and, to the surprise 
of all, this hard, grave mill-master was almost rollick¬ 
ing, with a memory for their intimate affairs and a 
kindly jest for the little ones. 

“ He’s noan th’ same man he war, isn’t Stephen 
Royd,” said one woman to another; “ what ails him, 
think ye, to look leetsome as a chaffinch on a twig? ” 

“ Nay, he’s addling brass, they say—addling it as 
fast as he can oppen his pockets for’t. An’ if that isn’t 
enough to mak a man leetsome, what is ? ” 

“ Well, theer’s brass an’ theer’s content—an’ I hevn’t 
found th’ two keep mich company, not I. Howsiver, 
we shall see what we shall see, now th’ maister can tak 
a wife to hisseln.” 


3°+ 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Tak a wife? Ay, he’s wanted Mistress Barbara 
lang enew, only he war ower poor, I reckon, to keep 
her. Well, they’d mak a bonnie couple, choose who 
hears me say’t.” 

The dene, meanwhile, was growing noisy with 
laughter, and the shouts of children, and the rough 
voices of the combers as they bandied jests one with 
another while making preparations for the feast to 
come. Beside the little brig of stone, just where the 
valley opened right and left up to the open moor, a 
half-dozen of them were piling great arm-fulls of ling 
and twigs and alder-branches; others were fixing the 
stewpot in its place, and each man as he came up 
threw in his contribution, of meat or bread, green-stuff 
or potatoes. Under the hill, where the bracken stood 
knee-deep and the heather budded toward flowering, 
three laughing fellows were broaching a barrel of 
October ale—Royd’s second gift of the kind—and were 
asking one another how soon Tim o’ Tab’s might be 
looked for. 

Tim, as it chanced, was coming over the hill-crest 
at the moment, his spindle legs showing clear against 
the sky; and soon, as he drew nearer, they could see 
that he carried a brace of hares slung round his neck, 
and a brace of grouse in either hand. For Tim, broad 
daylight as it was, looked to find none but friends in 
Hazel Dene this morning, and his contribution to the 
stewpot need pay no toll to any man. 

“ Here he comes! ” cried Shackleton boisterously, as 
he struck a spark into his tinder-box and set the dried 
ling flaming under the heap of ling and faggots. 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3°5 

“ Ay, an’ Flick an’ all, man an’ dog—dang me if iver 
I saw two peas i’ a pod more like to look at.” 

Tim nodded gaily from one to another as he dis¬ 
burdened himself of his load. Hares and grouse were 
speedily made ready for the pot and added to the 
contents of the cauldron, from which a fragrant steam 
was already rising into the blue, sunlit strip of sky that 
roofed the Dene. There was no cessation, meanwhile, 
from jest and frolic, until the stew was ready—in token 
whereof Tim thrust a great wooden ladle into the pan 
and began helping the women-folk as they brought their 
delfen platters to the fire. 

“ Here’s Billy Puff,—he times his comings an’ his 
goings varry weel, does Billy,” laughed Shackleton, 
pointing down the path, round the bend of which the 
constable came waddling. 

“ He looks fearful pleased wi’ hisseln,” put in an¬ 
other. “We shall see summat, lads, when him an’ 
Flick get started, like.” 

They greeted the new-comer gravely; for word had 
gone abroad that the terrier and the man were to decide 
the wager made not long since, and all knew—save 
Billy Puff—what the issue was to be. 

“ Well, Tim o’ Tab’s,” said the big man, blowing out 
his cheeks, “ I reckon tha’rt noan just ready to keep 
thy bargain. 

“ Ready as can be, Billy; I’ve getten th’ rope an’ all 
•—just help thyseln to summat, to stiffen thee, like. 
Tha’ll need it, lad, afore we begin th’ match.” 

Billy Puff, with many protests, accepted a quart of 
ale; and after that he secured the half of a grouse and 


3°6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


fell to despatching it. “ The bargain war that Flick 
here pulled me ower Hazel Beck,” he said; “ if he can, 
then I gi’e thee a barrel o’ ale—an’ if he cannot, then 
tha gi’es it me.” 

“ There’s nobbut one thing,” went on Tim, “ an’ 
that is about th’ way we fasten t’ rope. Flick 
niver yet put out all his strength if th’ man war facing 
him.” 

“ An’ why not, I should like to knaw ? It’s a queer- 
ish fancy, yond, for ony dog to hev.” 

“ Nay, it’s nat’ral as cheese wi’ apple-pie, when ye 
knaw as mich about dogs as I could tell ye, Billy. 
Hevn’t ye iver noticed how th’ look of a man’s eye 
flairs ’em. They cannot abide it, someway; an’ Flick 
goes weak as a rabbit when ye look him full i’ th’ 
face.” 

The constable, wrapped in his own wisdom, did not 
notice the slow smile that went from one 'to another of 
the watching groups; for although no one bore foolish 
Billy any malice, there was not one of them but relished 
seeing his folly have full bent. Tim was getting his 
rope in readiness by this time; and so busy was he with 
his task that he did not see Parson Horrocks, and the 
Squire, and little Barbara come down the sloping fields 
toward them. 

The Squire was a little paler than his wont, but 
spruce, erect, well-gloved and booted as of old, and he 
swung his cane in jaunty fashion when the fiddlers 
drew their bows across the strings and played a trip¬ 
ping measure. Parson Horrocks, gay as any youngster, 
bowed then to Mistress Barbara, and claimed her hand, 



A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3°7 


and led the dance with her all down the strip of green, 
and over the wooden bridge, and back again. 

“ Nay, but I grow older, child! Older than a man 
ought to feel at my age,” he cried, as they stopped 
under shelter of the rowan-trees. 

“ Then why hide the truth, sir, so shamefully? ” she 
answered, with the ghost of her old smile. 

Barbara, truth to tell, was finding it hard to show 
herself at ease to-day; she had a secret of her own, 
and one that she was loth to tell this oldest of her 
friends. 

“ And you, Tim? Where were you last night? ” went 
on the Parson, sniffing at the fragrant steam. 

“ I’ bed, for sure, Parson. Where should a gooid lad 
be?” answered Tim soberly. ‘If grouse, an’ hares, 
an’ what not, will come an’ lig on my doorstun—why, 
I mun bring ’em wi’ me; but to think I find ’em on th’ 
oppen moor—to say as mich i’ face o’ Squire here— 
nay, nay! ” 

“ We’ll have thee at the court-house yet,” the Squire 
answered, with a shadowy smile. “ Ah, Stephen, so all 
the world has come a-holidaying to-day,” he broke off, 
as Royd joined the little group. 

“ It would seem so, sir—but then how many days 
have we as fair as this ? ” 

“Laugh while we may—eh, lad? Well, ’tis sound 
philosophy the young men think.” 

“ And the elders think it sometimes,” the Parson 
cried. “ Stephen, your years grow less, I think; you 
may one day hope to be as young as I am if you keep 
such spirits.” 



MISTRESS BARBARA 


308 

Royd’s spirits fell, however, as quickly as they had 
risen. He had not looked to find Barbara here, and as 
he saw her standing, dainty and cool against the sober 
back-ground of the village folk, he wondered how he 
or any other man about the moorside could keep away 
from the Wynyates doorstep. Buoyant, sanguine for 
once of the success in trade which he had coveted, he 
turned to her—and found her greeting so reluctant, so 
discourteous almost, that even Parson Horrocks 
noticed it, and wondered what could be amiss between 
these two. 

“ ’Tis like old days, eh, Parson? ” cried Squire Cun- 
liffe. “ See the rough fellows yonder, what lightness 
they can put into their heels. The very constable is 
dancing, and so I must even follow the example set 
me by the parish. Barbara, your hand—and if the Par¬ 
son shames me, you must remember he is my junior 
by a year or two.” 

“ A fine couple, Stephen,” said Parson Horrocks, 
watching them join the throng of merrymakers. “ If 
Heaven had given me a daughter, and she had had a 
tithe of Barbara’s witchery— There, there! a bachelor 
of my standing, lad, to be talking of such softnesses. 
Let us instead go see what yonder fragrant stew will 
yield us.” 

Each moment the stew was giving out new odours 
to the wind—a touch of hare, a whiff of grouse, a 
suspicion of beef, all blended into one. The sunlight 
strengthened, the dragon-flies began to dance above 
the steam, and now and then a drowsy, over-burdened 
bee came down the breeze. It was holiday indeed in 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3°9 


Ling Crag parish, and not the least merry of them all, 
in his grave way, was the village constable, who stood 
wiping the moisture from his face. 

“ Warm, Maister Royd, warm! ” he cried. “ What 
ails a man to go dancing till th’ sweat runs down him 
fair like rain, I dunnot knaw; but we all seem to do’t. 
See ye, now, ye’ve getten no plate, like; wod ye mak 
shift wi’ mine afore I use it? ” lie brought a red-and- 
yellow kerchief from his pocket, from which he took 
in turn a knife and fork and delfen plate, and Royd 
thanked him as he pushed the great ladle into the 
stewpot, and drew out a liberal helping, which he 
handed to the Parson. 

“ It’s catch what ye can, an’ be sure ye get plenty 
on’t,” observed the constable. 

“ Ay, plenty to eat, an’ plenty to drink, an’ all,” 
chimed in Tim o’ Tab’s, who had been slily filling his 
rival’s mug from the barrel under the bracken-green 
hill. “ We’ve getten a bit of a disputation to settle, 
Billy an’ me—see ye, Maister Royd, here’s another 
platter for ye, if ye’ve so minded—ay, we’ve getten a 
disputation, for Billy says he can pull Flick ower t’ 
stream, an’ I say he cannot.” 

Billy Puff laughed with easy-going contempt, and 
looked slantwise at Royd, as if to intimate his sense of 
Tim’s scant-wittedness; for jests were well enough 
when launched at other folk, but it did not occur to 
the constable, vain-glorious as he was, that so im¬ 
portant a personage as himself should be made to serve 
as target. 

“ Well, let’s mak a start,” said Tim cheerfully. 


3 T0 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Ye’ll mind ’at your back’s to be turned on th’ 
dog?” 

“ Ay,” agreed the other cordially, now that meat and 
drink had mellowed him, “ I’ll turn my back on him, 
an’ I’ll pull wi’ half my strength—I’ll do owt to please 
thee, Tim o’ Tab’s, though tha’ll loose thy ale at th’ 
end o’ all. Ready? Ay, I’m ready, an’ Parson an’ 
Maister Royd here shall come to watch th’ sport for- 
rard.” 

The combers, seeing them make a move toward the 
stream, began to close in about them, with suspicious 
gravity; while Royd, whose father had told him times 
and again of a like jest played long ago upon a daftish 
fellow from over Cranshaw way, looked on with a grim 
smile, as he joined the Squire and Barbara on the hill- 
slope and watched the rope fixed by ready hands, one 
end of it about the man’s round middle, the other to 
the terrier. It seemed incredible that any man should 
be so lost to all suspicion as the constable—yet a broad 
grin of satisfaction was on his face as he set his legs 
apart and glanced over-shoulder at the dog. Flick, for 
his part, was solemn as his master, save where the 
frolic lurked in either lively eye. “ Now, then! ” cried 
Billy. “Now, then, lads! Tell yonder dog he’d best 
not strive ower hard or he’ll burst hisseln.” 

“ I’m feared, Billy—ay, I’m feared ye’ll be ower- 
strong for him, now I see th’ way ye shape,” murmured 
Tim. “ Howsiver, a bargain’s a bargain, an’ I’ll hod to 
what I said. Ephraim, lad, do ye go an’ stand fair 
opposite to Billy, an’ keep his eyes to yond side o’ 
th’ stream; keep ’em fixed on thy own bonnie face, 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3 11 

Ephraim, an’ he’ll niver want to look ower his shoulder 
as he’s doing now.” 

Ephraim did as he was bidden, and stood with his 
face turned toward Billy Puff’s—stood and helped to 
form as strange a picture as Hazel Dene had ever, 
surely, looked upon. On one side the stream, the 
constable, a look of foolish satisfaction on his face, as 
at a victory assured, his round blue eyes fixed upon 
Ephraim’s in a steady stare; on the farther bank, the 
terrier, with its wagging stump of a tail and its air of 
drollery; across the stream and dipping gently into the 
water, a rope of thickness altogether disproportionate 
even to the constable’s weight—a rope so thick, indeed, 
that he might from this one absurdity have guessed 
that there was laughter in the making at his expense. 
About the combatants, on both sides of the stream, 
stood the clustered knots of combers, farm-wives, chil¬ 
dren; while Parson Horrocks and his friends looked 
down upon them from the hillside, in doubt as to the 
propriety of laughing at such sport, yet moved to 
mirth, for all that, by the constable’s self-satisfaction. 

“ Now,” cried Tim, “ Flick, get to it, lad. Billy, art 
ready?—Nay, no lookings round, lad, or we niver shall 
get started.” 

The same willing hands that had fastened the rope, 
took hold of it again as Tim gave the signal—took hold 
of it on the terrier’s side of the stream, and pulled with 
cautious, ever-increasing strength, and gradually drew 
Billy Puff toward the brink; then with a last hearty 
effort, they brought him full into the stream. 

A great cheer went up, which was redoubled as Billy 


3 12 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


scrambled to the bank and dashed the water from 
mouth and eyes; while Flick sat quietly on his haunches, 
with an air of effort satisfactorily made and a sense 
of consequence that clearly claimed the whole merit of 
the victory. 

“ Begow! ” muttered Billy, with a puzzled look at 
the terrier, soon as his eyes were cleared a little of 
the water, “ begow, lads, I niver could hev thowt it, 
niver! He pulled that hard, did tlT dog, I couldn’t 
no way— Nay, nay, I can scarce believe it yet! ” 

Slowly, as he emerged from his self-absorption and 
viewed the matter from another standpoint, his doubts 
increased, although the combers stood all aloof from 
Flick and wore an air of stolid gravity. And the more 
he looked at the terrier, the less likely it seemed that 
he should have proved the stronger of the two. 

“ Theer’s summat wrang,” he muttered; “ summat 
grievous wrang, Tim o’ Tab’s—it’s noan jannock, noan 
jannock, an’ I didn’t think it on ye.” 

“ Why, what’s agate, Billy? Yonder’s my dog Flick 
an’ there are ye; an’ it’s plain to be seed which hes won 
th’ bet.” 

“ He war helped, war the dog; an’ I war a fooil not 
to—” 

“ Helped ? He needs no help, Billy! It war wonder¬ 
ful, fair wonderful, to see th’ way he pulled an’ pulled, 
an’ reckoned he’d niver manage your sixteen stone— 
an’ then all i’ a minute, hoick! An’ ye war i’ the 
watter.” 

Even the Squire was laughing at Billy’s disordered 
countenance and woebegone, half-wrathful look; but 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3i3 


Royd did not join in the gaiety, for he had come 
close to Barbara’s side and was watching her air of 
aloofness grow momentarily deeper. 

“ Barbara,” he said bluntly, “ what is amiss? It is 
not long ago, surely, since you came to Hazel Mill 
and watched the water-wheel go round ? ” 

“ It is years ago, I think,” she answered, her face 
averted. “ That was my birthday, was it not ? ” 

“ Yes, your birthday; but why should you sound as 
if it were the saddest of sad festivals?” 

“Because—it does not matter, does it? They are 
sad days, Stephen, for every one of them carries us so 
much nearer what Parson Horrocks calls his garden.” 

“Oh, but this will not do, Babette!” he cried. 
“ Look at the combers yonder—look at the blue sky 
and the sunshine—cannot you see a brighter side to 
life than the Parson’s garden offers ? ” 

“ Not to-day. Please, will you—will you not ask me 
for my reasons ? I am not ready with them, Stephen ? ” 
Something so pleading there was in her tone, so 
unhappy and ill-at-ease, that Royd said no more—only 
touched her lightly in token of his comradeship and 
turned to answer some jest of Parson Horrocks’, Yet 
he wondered what the child could mean,—wondered, 
and forgot that very sunshine he had talked of, and 
heard the voices of the merrymakers come dull and 
muffled from the dene below. 

“ What ails her ? ” he kept repeating to himself, not 
guessing how soon he was to learn from other lips 
than Barbara’s. 

For by and by the Parson claimed his company on 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


3*4 

the way home to Marshcotes, to share with him a dish 
of tea and an hour’s talk over certain matters; the hour 
lengthened out to supper-time, as such hours were wont 
to do at Marshcotes Parsonage, and Stephen, who was 
in no mood for work, stayed on. 

“ It is not often I can snare thee for so long, 
Stephen,” he said, relapsing into the “ thee ” and 

thou ” which so often slipped out to mark his feeling 
for the younger man; “ I mean to make the most of it, 
you may depend on it, and there’s supper enough for 
two, or should be. I fancy success does not suit you 
over well,” he went on presently. “ You might have 
lost a fortune instead of made one, lad, to judge by 
your grave face.” 

“ Have you been at Wynyates lately? ” asked Royd, 
with an abruptness that told his host as plainly as need 
be what was in his mind. 

“ Not since last Sabbath. Barbara looked sadly pale, 
I thought—though not one half so weary as she did 
to-day. Poor child! There’s something on her mind, 
I doubt. Well, sit ye down, Stephen, for here’s the 
supper waiting for us.” 

They were still at the board, and the Parson was 
laughing once again to think of Billy Puff’s discom¬ 
fiture, when there came a knocking at the outer door, 
and Bancroft of the Heights was ushered in. His 
step was unsteady, and he laughed in boisterous fashion 
as he came striding up to the hearth. 

“ The happiest man in Marshcotes, sir, has come to 
see you,” he said, bowing first to his host and then, 
with courteous malice, to Royd. 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3 J 5 


“ How so?” asked the Parson distantly. He did 
not care to see any visitor come so into his house. 

“ Why, little Mistress Barbara has promised to wed 
me, Parson. That was yestereven, and to-day, I—well, 
I had to drink success to a fair bargain made.” 

Royd turned his back on them, and stood for a 
moment with averted face; and then he turned again, 
and his face, though grey, was hard and expressionless 
as if he were bartering with a brother mill-owner. It 
was the Parson who first broke silence, however. 

“ I am grieved, Mr. Bancroft,” he said, in his blunt 
way. 

Bancroft stared at him. “ Damme, Parson, you have 
a happy way of wishing well to us.” 

“ I wish well to Barbara at all times; that is my 
reason for utterly misliking this match. Stand straight, 
sir! ” he broke off, with a sudden flash of temper. 
“ The least you can do is to come sober when you bring 
such news. There, there! Your pardon. You are in 
my own house—my guest, therefore—and I did not 
mean to be so harsh with you.” 

“ It is nothing, sir,” cried Bancroft airily. “ So long 
as little Barbara is mine, I can keep a warm heart 
against reproach.” 

Again he glanced at Royd, but he surprised no emo¬ 
tion there. 

“ I congratulate you. You are more fortunate than 
any man in Marshcotes,” said the master-weaver 
quietly. 

He left them there, Bancroft and the Parson, and 
went out of the churchyard gate—out and up on to the 


3 l6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


moor. He did not realise the blow as yet; there wa9 a 
numbness on him, as if he had been struck, and he was 
down the dip of Hazel Dene, and over the opposite 
hill-crest, before the clear thought shaped itself, “ Bar¬ 
bara is gone.” This, then, was the meaning of her 
coldness—the coldness that so short a while ago had 
been warm friendship. He looked across at the long 
low house upon the hill, as he had looked night after 
night through the passing years; he saw the windowed 
walls of it, the chimney-stacks, the trees this side the 
garden-wall—saw them, for the first time, without a 
trace of glamour. Barbara was lost, his playmate of 
the days gone by. She had become part of the air he 
breathed, part of the light of sky and land; and she 
was pledged to Bancroft of the Heights. 

Slowly, as the moor-breeze freshened down the dene, 
he began to understand the meaning of it, began to 
understand the bitterness of renunciation and the futil¬ 
ity of work. What had he striven for all these twenty 
years? For the house yonder on the hill, and latterly 
for a mistress who should fill it. He could not fore¬ 
close the mortgages now that Barbara was to share 
Bancroft’s fortunes. Tongues had wagged about the 
moorside lately touching Barbara and her suitor from 
the Heights, but neither Royd nor the Parson had ever 
given more than passing credence to them; he had 
seemed too slight a lover for her—yet she had chosen 
him. All was gone at the one blow; and Royd’s faith 
grew empty and unmeaning. 

Twenty years! It was no long time, as time was 
reckoned by the swart rises of the moor, by the grey 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3 J 7 


walls and benty fields; yet to Stephen Royd it seemed, 
in the retrospect, a time of endless strain. Twenty 
years of fret and toil and barter; years of high hope 
and bitter disappointments by the way; each season 
finding him with one more good step taken toward his 
goal, each evening—summer’s dusk or winter’s dark— 
seeing him stride up the hill-crest till he stood in sight 
of the old home. And all that was cut clean away from 
him, at a word from such as Bancroft of the Heights. 

Up and up he went into the moor, and his heart was 
bitter as the bogland that skirted the one side of his 
path. Rugged, accustomed from long habit to force 
his way through obstacles, he could not accept this 
blow which, ripening tardily, had found time to gather 
strength; his reason cried out against it—and if, some¬ 
where far back in the stillness of his conscience, a faint 
voice said that this was just, he would not listen. Bar¬ 
bara was gone, his chance of the Heights was gone; 
what was left to him to work for or to hope? 

Yet he might one day come to understand—what now 
was dark as the moor-face itself to him—that he had 
worked with too single an eye to his own fortune. 
Uphill the road had been, but he had climbed it with 
sturdy hope of the reward that waited him upon the 
summit; he had not set himself yet to climb in search 
of another’s happiness, not his own; nay, he was as far 
from any such wish to-night as was the remote, sullen 
line of heath; he was Ishmael once again, and the clack 
of the frightened grouse, the cry of night-birds from 
the marshes, were the voices of his own harsh mood. 

Royd’s evil hour was come, the time of that trial 


3*8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


which once and for all was to leave its mark upon his 
life and shape his destiny. Little by little he had been 
gaining kindliness of late; little by little he had felt the 
human sap run warm in him again. His conscience 
had been stirred by that crying of the children which 
rose up from the moor-factories; pity had intruded it¬ 
self into the dry heart of his ambitions—pity, and love 
of little Barbara, and sense of the throbbing hopes and 
aches and dreads which made up life for his neigh¬ 
bours. He had known few dreads in his time, save that 
men should find him less than a Royd in all his deal¬ 
ings; he had been over-busy to realise that others felt 
the pains he lacked, and harboured terrors which were 
unknown to him. And Barbara and success between 
them had been breaking down all that, until on the 
sudden his summer, like the moor’s, had turned to 
rain; and now all that was bitter in him had come 
once more to the front; the fight had been in vain, and 
there was no hilltop anywhere in view along the grey 
horizon of his life. 

Dangerous the mood would have been in any man; 
in Royd it threatened to be tragic. Effort, slowly 
added to effort as the years passed, could be turned 
all to waste in a few months once the strain was slack¬ 
ened. The very strength that he had shown, his isola¬ 
tion in the little house beside the mill, were his worst 
enemies now; the moor, wild and rugged and untamed, 
no longer promised to be the friend it had been to 
him, for its counsel might be desperate; he had no hope 
from prayer, for he had measured life heretofore from 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


3*9 


the standpoint of present needs; by his own strength 
he must stand or fall, by his own strength—or what 
he would have called his own—he must meet this blow 
which had come with such appalling suddenness. 

None of his neighbours noted any change in him or 
in his habits after this first evening’s communion with 
the moor, save that he bought a faster horse and one 
with a more brittle temper. Perhaps he was a little more 
remorseless when a bargain was in progress; perhaps 
his tongue was sharper toward his spinners; but that 
was all. 

He alone knew what the change in him was, knew 
how fast it was progressing. Night after night he 
would go up into the moor, and stride on and on, past 
bog and peat and rush-fringed marshland—warring, 
always warring, with the destiny that had overturned 
his plans. Once in a while, however, he would grow 
sick of motion, and would sit brooding, after work 
was over, in the cottage abutting on his mill; he had 
built his castle of dreams, and it had crumbled; and 
the last thought in his stubborn mind was to question 
whether its foundations were built on rock or sand. 
He was beaten, and he would not accept plain fact; 
and each day his heart grew bitterer toward the world, 
toward himself, toward ideals of any sort. 

And then a voice spoke from out the past, as it 
had not spoken this many a year gone by. Markedly 
abstemious Royd had always been, remembering his 
father’s fate. He would drink a little with the Parson 
when he went to see him of an evening, but rarely 


320 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


touched wine of any sort in his own house, nor felt the 
need of it until the time of his bitterness came to find 
him out. 

It was late one evening, it might be a fortnight after 
Bancroft’s suit had proved successful, that Royd, while 
sitting idly by his hearth, was assailed by a sudden 
fierce temptation. The blood of his father, and his 
father’s father, had been held in check, and held in 
check, but now it mastered him; he scarcely realised 
the truth, indeed, until he had reached down a bottle 
of port from the cupboard and had poured himself a 
measure. 

“ The end of the struggle—the end—instead of the 
long low house upon the hill,” he muttered. 

He held the glass up to the lamplight, and stood 
there for awhile thinking, thinking. The very sight of 
the wine had loosened many an impulse which he had 
thought to be dead long ago—rough-riding impulses, 
such as had led his father to a suicide’s death, such as 
had beggared many an old name about the moorside 
of honour and all else. He had kept them under with 
such jealousy through all these years that they were 
almost forgotten, till now they turned and mocked him 
from twenty hidden corners. He thought of moonlight 
escapades, when he and Tim o’ Tab’s and the Marsh- 
cotes gamekeepers were young together; he thought 
of revels he had witnessed at the Heights, when the 
bottle passed, and the wind fluted down the chimney 
on to the great logs of pine or beech, and madcap 
stories followed one the other; he remembered hunting- 
morns when his father’s laugh had sounded clear as a 


A COMBERS’ HOLIDAY 


321 


horn-blast across the rough moor-fields. And these 
things seemed life to him—quick life, such as he had 
not found among the looms, such as he might yet find 
again if he threw off the yoke. 

“ Life! ” he cried, with a sombre laugh. “ Life, after 
all these years of drudgery! And nothing to stand 
between—nothing, now Barbara’s gone.” 

He stopped, and his laugh died down, and he passed 
a hand across his forehead. Beggared or no of all 
else, he had a clean name yet. Nothing mattered, 
maybe—but, for all that, he would face the greyness 
without help from wine. With a quick turn of the 
hand he threw his glass out at the casement, through 
which a mellow breeze was stealing, laden with honey 
from heath and close-cropped pasture lands. Then, 
briskly, decisively as he did everything, he went out 
at the door, and up the field-track leading to the Par¬ 
sonage. The visit seemed strangely natural at such a 
time; for in boyhood’s days he had always brought 
his troubles to Parson Horrocks as soon as they threat¬ 
ened to grow over-strong for him. 

“ You’ve a long face, Stephen—as long as Tom o’ 
Smicks’s fiddle,” cried the Parson, meeting him at the 
churchyard gate and eyeing him by the light of the 
dropping moon. 

“ The times are scarcely merry, Parson, are they, for 
some of us? ” 

“ No times are ever very gay, lad, if we look rightly 
at them. What then? They pass and leave us wiser, 
let us pray.” 

“ Suppose I were weary of it all ? Suppose I were 


3 22 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


a Royd underneath all else, and that I meant to buy 
myself a few acres somewhere on the moors and rough- 
ride it with the best ? My folk were fond of the bottle, 
sir, if you will call to mind.” 

The Parson gripped him roughly by the arm. “ The 
wind sets there, does it? Come you with me, lad— 
see! The headstone is plain to read even by this light.” 

He pointed to the grave of Jasper Royd, and Jasper’s 
son, as he caught the grey, cold glint of the moon-rays 
on the stone, shivered a little and was silent. Once 
again that last drear scene of all recurred to him, when 
they brought his father to the Heights, marked with 
the gunshot wound that had killed life and pride for 
him—yet had not ended it as he had wished, with no 
pause for understanding of his deed. They had given 
him Christian burial, it is true; but Jasper Royd him¬ 
self would have been the first to disclaim his right to 
such. A sudden overwhelming pity stirred in the son’s 
heart, a sudden sense of the finality of that one deed. 

“ Let us go, Parson,” he said softly. 

“ Ay, lad, we’ll go—and Stephen Royd will never 
again come to me with any such-like tales as the one 
he brought me to-night.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


AT GOIT MILL 

P ARSON HORROCKS pondered for a week and 
more over the tidings which Bancroft of the 
Heights had brought him, and halted between 
anger and wouldrbe incredulity; and in the end he got 
to horse. The sun was warm upon the rich brown 
of the bilberries as he rode out to Wynyates, and 
a light breeze touched to elfin music the last year’s 
bells of heath. A goodly figure of a man the Parson 
showed. His shoulders were square to the west wind 
that met him face to face; his knees were firm as the 
saddle-leather under them; and his head was turned 
first to this side, then to that, with the quick interest 
in his surroundings which betokens the man of large, 
impulsive nature. Yet for all that there was a line of 
pain across his forehead, and his eyes had less than 
their accustomed drollery in them. 

“ We plan and we plan,” he muttered once—it was 
when he came to the steep round of the road—“ we 
plan and we plan—and what does it come to? And 
little Barbara—” 

He stopped, and went forward without another word 
until he gained the Wynyates gate. Barbara, as it 
chanced, was gathering lavender from the little garden- 
323 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


324 

strip that fronted the low windows of the house; a 
flush of pleasure rose to her face, then went again as 
she saw how mirthless was the Parson’s greeting. Pie 
came straight up to her and took her hands across the 
palings, and held them so. 

“ Little Barbara,” he said, “ you were scarce higher 
than that bush of peonies when first I set you on my 
knee. Tell me, am I to wish you well in this new 
life?” 

Her eyes fell, but she made no effort to withdraw her 
hands. “ I scarcely know,” she faltered. 

“ So I had thought—so I had feared, child. You’ve 
not the look a woman has when she’s happy in her 
choice.” 

She glanced at him, and down again; she was eager 
to defend that choice of hers, but it was useless to 
attempt it. 

“ Oh, I cannot—I cannot lie to you,” she said at 
last, desperately. “ Yet I’ve tried to be so brave. 
Parson Horrocks, I cannot bear it ” 

“You cannot bear it? Barbara, Barbara!” The 
old man’s voice was harsh almost in its trouble. 

“ Father’s happiness depended on it. It seemed 
right, and I have promised.” 

“Well, and you have promised, let us say? God 
knows I would counsel none to break a promise—unless 
the keeping of it led to certain evil.” 

“ It may lead where it will, sir; I have pledged my 
word,” she said, with the proud lifting of her head that 
Parson Plorrocks knew so well. 

“A Cunliffe spoke there, child; and I’m glad and 


AT GOIT MILL 


3 2 5 


sorry both. Do you realise, I wonder, all that it will 
mean ? ” 

I know it will be misery. Yet it would be greater 
misery to see father growing more and more infirm 
and troubled as the days went on. Do you not under¬ 
stand—I cannot see him suffer.” 

“But, child, what motive has he? Mr. Bancroft is 
scarcely—scarcely—” 

“ Scarcely the choice you would have expected him 
make ? ” finished Barbara, with a sad little smile. “ I 
do not know—some motive he must have, for he has 
set his heart on it.” 

The Parson was silent for a while; then, “ And you 
are determined to go on with it? ” he said brusquely. 

“ Indeed I must; and—and some day I may grow to 
care for him.” 

“ Pah! ” flashed the old man, grieved to see Barbara 
so wistful for all her bravery. “ You’re not the maid 
I thought you if you grow to do any such thing. But 
there! What right have I—” 

“ You have the right—you have the right,” she broke 
in. “I would listen to you gladly, sir—yet I dare not. 
Ah, there is father, and he will want a talk with you, 
I know; shall I see you at the supper-board ? ” 

“ With your permission, yes, child. You look out of 
heart, and an old fogey’s talk may do you good.” 

“If talk could do me good, Parson Horrocks—if I 
were troubled only about the childish things with which 
I used to come to you—it would be so easy.” 

“ You did not think so then, did you? Everything, 
Babette, seems easier than just the one trouble that we 


326 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


have to bear. You broke your dolls when you were 
a wee bairn, and I remember with what tragedy you 
used to bring the news to me! And now there’s a 
bigger doll broken, eh? A doll called happiness, or 
glamour, or hope. Well, bring it to me to be mended, 
lassie, as I used to mend the other. Ah, Squire! A 
fair good-day to you—as fair as Barbara here among 
her flowers,” he broke off. 

“ I scarcely looked for you to-day—perhaps because 
I have looked for you vainly this se’nnight past. The 
surprise is very welcome,” cried Squire Cunliffe, com¬ 
ing up the road. 

“ I came to tell Barbara that I had had news of her,” 
said the Parson. 

“ And to wish her well? ’Tis kind of you to come 
so soon. And Mr. Bancroft? You know as well as I 
that he would deserve any maid in Marshcotes except 
my own little girl.” 

“ Perhaps I do not know as much ”—the other was 
beginning, then stopped in answer to a pleading look 
from Barbara. “ Have you heard aught of Stephen 
lately ? ” he broke off, with a certain deliberate inten¬ 
tion in the question. 

“ Not of late, Parson. He would seem to be busy in 
these latter days.” 

“That is a pity, surely; do you know what makes 
me ask the question ? ” 

“Nay, how should I?—save that we were all close 
friends together once on a day, you and he and I; and 
it may be—” 

“ It may be that he needs human fellowship just 


AT GOIT MILL 


3 2 7 

now,” broke in the other,—“ needs it as he never has 
in all his life, Squire. He is lonely, and a little dis¬ 
appointed, perhaps, with what his trade has done for 
him.” 

“ I should be sorry for him to lack company when we 
can give it. You are right—yes, you are right—we 
have been wanting lately with regard to him, and he 
is more retiring than he used to be.” 

The Parson was honest enough in this wish that 
Stephen should be drawn out of his self-centred life; 
but he had another motive, too, though Barbara did 
not guess how narrowly he was watching her sudden 
change of countenance. 

“ The pity of it, the pity! ” he muttered to himself, 
as the result of the long scrutiny. 

“ They tell me trade is going from bad to worse,” 
said the Squire. “ Stephen contrives to keep his looms 
at work, I believe,”—this with a curious shadowy 
smile that was gone upon the instant,—“ but there are 
rumours of failures everywhere, and the smaller men 
will be ruined through the debts owing to them.” 

It was the Parson’s turn to smile, as he thought of 
Royd’s prosperity. “ Even such small mills as 
Stephen’s may keep going,” he said. “ Indeed, he has 
never done so well, if all I hear be true.” 

Squire Cunliffe sighed, with evident relief. “ That 
is good hearing; I am glad—glad for his own sake,” 
he said. 

“ And yet they are talking gravely in Ling Crag,” 
said Barbara, coming out of a long train of thought. 
“ I overheard the combers as I passed the inn on 


328 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Monday; one was saying that Goit Mill would soon 
be idle, and another wondered how it would affect Mr. 
Royd, to whom it owed some heavy debts. Oh, but 
I should be sorry, sorry, if Stephen were to lose all 
that the long years have brought him.” 

“ If Goit Mill is to be silent, any man’s loss of for¬ 
tune will be worth while,” cried the Parson. “ Is the 
news true, Cunliffe, think ye? ” 

The squire raised his brows in the old disdainful 
way that his friends knew so well when trade was 
being talked of. “ I do not hear much gossip about 
trade,” he said. “We belong to an older generation, 
Parson, do we not? which found the last gallop, or 
the last cock-fight, or the richness of our crops, food 
enough for talk. ’Twas no good day for us when 
Goit Mill was built.” 

Yet, the master of Goit Mill, if rumour spoke truly 
of his fortunes, was hiding the fact under a bold front; 
and at the moment when Barbara first spoke of him he 
was giving Stephen Royd the fruits of his philosophy. 
It was with ever-growing distaste that Royd paid his 
necessary visits to Goit Mill. What was open and 
above board in the dealings of Ephraim Booth showed 
a dark face enough; but it was whispered that there 
were darker depths unsounded—that the iniquities done 
under cover of the mill-walls beggared the worst that 
any man could say of them. Parson Horrocks was 
not the only one who wondered what chanced to the 
hapless pauper-brats, to the hapless pauper imbecile 
whose body was handed over by the workhouse master 
like so much broken refuse, to be got rid of at any 


AT GOIT MILL 


3 2 9 

price. The moor-folk wondered too; but when they 
asked their own children—the children who worked 
with the paupers, but lived in their own homes—these 
were silent touching what went on in Goit Mill; partly 
they were afraid to speak, and partly the weight of 
their own sufferings dulled them to the miseries of their 
fellows. Only Booth himself, and the two overlookers 
who seemed to have been chipped from the same piece 
of stone as the master, knew the mill’s secrets; but 
rumour, uglier than truth because it gives fancy greater 
licence, ran in and out about the country-side and folk 
who had been wont to shiver at the name of Guytrash 
and the Sorrowful Woman, shrank now from the least 
whisper of Booth’s name. 

Perhaps Royd was fanciful this morning, as he rode 
down the lane that led to Goit Mill and saw the high 
naked walls beneath him, for he told himself that the 
place had grown to the likeness of its master, and that 
its every window showed an eye of greed and lust and 
cruelty. 

“ Fool, fool!” he muttered. “What is it to you, 
Stephen Royd? You have to work—and,” he finished, 
with a quick, passionate oath, “ you shall not turn 
evangelist at the end of twenty years.” 

His heat, his use of an oath which came queerly from 
one who had always kept his passions well in hand, 
showed how keenly, underneath all personal trouble, 
beneath all his own private need of work for forget¬ 
fulness’ sake, Royd was feeling the sorrows of the 
little world about him. If he began to fight shy of 
barter with such as Ephraim Booth, he would lessen 


330 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


his trade by three-quarters at the least; the thought 
was folly, madness—yet it was mastering him. 

At the bend of the lane, just where the thorn-bushes 
and the hollies intertwined, he came suddenly on Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights, who was riding upward from the 
direction of the mill. Royd’s brows went up in sheer 
surprise; for the lane had no other outlet than the mill 
on that side, and he could not guess what this spruce 
ne’er-do-weel could want among the wool-packs and 
the spinning-frames. Meetings between them were 
growing more and more uncomfortable. Bancroft, on 
his side, could not conceal the sense of triumph which 
with him meant insolence; while Royd was in a meas¬ 
ure tongue-tied by regard for Barbara, and by fear 
lest he should give way to sudden heat and let Ban¬ 
croft know just how far he was indebted to his rival. 
This morning the encounter, as it chanced, was more 
awkward than usual; for they met where the lane was 
narrowest, and Royd’s horse began to spread its feet 
about as he tried to get it quickly past. 

“ Good-day to you, Mr. Royd,” said Bancroft airily, 
as perforce he drew his horse close in to the right hand 
of the way, while he watched Royd regain the mastery 
of his beast. 

“ Good-day, Mr. Bancroft. My horse has caused 
you some inconvenience, I fear,” answered Royd coldly. 

“ Don’t name it! We were born to cause each other 
inconvenience, so it seems.” 

Royd was struck by the other’s reckless air, more 
than by his open reference to a rivalry which should 
have been forgotten; he glanced more closely at him, 


AT GOIT MILL 


33 1 


and saw that his face was flushed and his hands 
unsteady on the reins. A cold sense of sickness came 
over Stephen Royd; he was thinking no longer of 
himself, of his own dislike to Bancroft, but of the little 
maid who had deserved a different fate. He would 
have passed on, but Bancroft drew across his path, 
by aid of what seemed a chance movement of his 
bridle. 

“ What am I doing on the road to Goit Mill, you’ll 
wonder? ” he went on, with an air of would-be cunning. 
“ Well, the truth is, Mr. Royd, I’m setting up in trade 
myself—going to beggar you for the sheer frolic of 
the thing. That’s why I’ve been to the mill—I went to 
haggle about a bale of wool with that old scoundrel 
Ephraim Booth.” 

Royd’s temper, when it broke, was apt to give way 
completely. “ You are lying to me, Mr. Bancroft,” 
he said slowly. “ If I had any interest in your move¬ 
ments I could understand it better; but I’ve none. 
Now, will you give me room to pass?” 

Bancroft of the Heights gave a long glance at Royd. 
“ By and by—when you’ve taken back that word, or 
paid for it,” he said, with a certain boldness that was 
not his but the wine’s that had flushed his cheek. 

“ I’ll pay for it—yes,” said Royd, half. impatiently, 
half with the indulgence which an older man shows to 
a stripling. “ What do you want, Mr. Bancroft? What 
sort of payment? And then perhaps when the debt is 
cancelled you will move aside, for I’m in haste to 
finish my business at the mill.” 

There was less assurance now in Bancroft’s air. 


332 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ You called my honesty in question; will you take back 
the word? ” he muttered. 

“ You ask too much of me. I only promised pay- 
ment.” 

For a moment the other hesitated, and half-raised his 
crop; then, with a sudden movement of the reins, he 
backed his horse and left the way clear for his ad¬ 
versary. “ I’m in liquor, sir, and should fight at dis¬ 
advantage/’ he said, with a dignity altogether droll. 
“ Perhaps another time—” 

“ Any time, Mr. Bancroft—but call on me out of 
business hours if it is equally convenient/’ 

Royd shrugged his shoulders as he passed down the 
road. He had never seen Bancroft so deep in debt to 
the bottle, and he despised himself already for giving 
way to passion with one so little his own master. Then 
he thought once again of Barbara; and a line of pain, 
deep and clean-cut, came out above his brows. His 
pity for her was near to anguish; and it was selfless, 
as it could not have been before he learned the lesson 
taught, not by labour coupled with hope, but by the 
work which has renunciation for guide and sole com¬ 
panion. Barbara could never now be his, and it was 
strange how much his care for her, his power of caring 
for her, had been deepened by the knowledge. 

He was at the mill-gate now, and with a sigh he 
brought his mind back to the price of yarn. A girl was 
standing in the mill-yard—a full-figured swarthy lass, 
with a freckled hand resting on either well-turned hip. 
Royd had seen her once or twice about the mill, and 
knew her for Booth’s daughter. Indeed, the likeness of 



AT GOIT MILL 


333 


the pair was obvious, though the father’s cruelty had 
taken in the daughter another and a kindred road. 

“ Shall I find Mr. Booth ? ” asked Royd, half salut¬ 
ing her with his whip. 

The girl looked up the road which Bancroft of the 
Heights had taken; and her colour deepened as she 
turned with a sort of subdued defiance in her face for 
which Royd could find no reason. 

“ He went to Marshcotes a good two hours ago,” 
she answered. 

“ Is there no chance of seeing him, think you, if I 
wait? ” 

“ Well, he doesn’t often miss his victuals if he can 
help it, and dinner’s all but cooked.” 

“ I’ll wait then,” said Royd briefly. 

“Would you like to step into the house?” the girl 
suggested, still with her eyes on the Ling Crag road, 
and still in the same grudging tone. 

Royd shook his head; at a pinch he could bring 
himself to trade with Ephraim Booth, but enter his 
door he would not. Ling Crag born, the master-weaver 
had never lost, in mart or mill, that fine-edged sense of 
hospitality which with the moor-folk comes next to 
godliness. 

“ I prefer the open,” he said, with blunt lack of 
courtesy. 

The girl made no rejoinder, but crossed, with her 
free, reckless stride, to the open house-door and left 
Royd to wander at his pleasure among the litter of the 
yard. The breeze was sweet, and the sun’s warmth 
kindly, on the moors and sloping fields; but no touch 


334 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


of the summer’s graciousness could penetrate the 
squalor of the factory-yard. The heaps of rubbish 
lying here and there, sent up a greasy stench; the 
nettles and the docks looked as ragged and forlorn as 
the rusted scraps of iron which they half concealed; 
and Royd, whose eye was keen for the little things that 
are sure tokens of the greater, felt all his old revulsion 
intensified. 

He stood there idly, listening to the rattle of the 
spinning-frames and to the water sliding down its 
wooden sluice; and then he started, just as he had 
done long months ago when standing in this self-same 
yard. The cry of the children had sounded once again 
from behind the factory walls, and the master-weaver 
listened to it with new sensibilities—the sensibilities 
that trouble and renunciation had sharpened to a dan¬ 
gerous edge. It was so needless, all this cruelty, all 
this ugliness and grime. Trade prospered no better 
for it, but fared the worse; it was flat denial, not of 
humanity only, but of common-sense. 

Little as he had liked trade, Stephen Royd had had 
his dreams. His own clean mill-yard, flanked by its 
strip of garden, was one outward sign of his ideal, just 
as his cleanly rule within-doors was; and he found 
himself, with a few others of like mind, among the 
jostling crowd of masters who stopped for nothing, 
who cared for nothing, so long as this day’s money¬ 
making—and perhaps to-morrow’s—was assured. It 
could not last; not the roots only, but the flower of 
their prosperity, were deep in offal, and their children 


AT GOIT MILL 


335 

would one day have to pay a bitter price for the wealth 
which would only emphasise their moral beggary. 

Ephraim Booth would have laughed his own rough 
mirthless laugh could he have known what thoughts 
were thronging in on Royd this morning—-thoughts 
that were interrupted by the clanging of the factory - 
bell. It was the children’s meal-time, and Royd 
watched two weary lines of them pass into and out of 
the mill-doors. The one line was freed from toil for 
fifteen minutes, lest hunger should be strained a shade 
too far; the other was going to the deserted spindles 
lest a moment of this God-sent day of money-making 
should be lost. Royd had seen them in the dimmer 
light of the factory; but he turned from them instinc¬ 
tively now that he saw the sunlight on their faces. 
Dwarfed, pinched, fevered, the two sad lines went by 
each other; their glances did not meet; their only 
greeting was a chance stumble now and then the one 
against the other. Behind each line an overlooker 
walked, with his lithe thong swinging in the sunlight. 
Up above, on the breezy hillside, men were stooping to 
the garnered sheaves, and laughing as they felt the 
well-earned sweat run down them; below, this other 
rustic scene—and one that was no less a part of every¬ 
day routine—was being played through. 

Sick at heart as he was, Royd held his ground and 
watched. He saw the out-coming line of children pass 
in by the low doors of the hovels where they ate, and 
slept; a little time sufficed them to swallow, with fam¬ 
ished haste, such food as was provided; and then they 


336 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


came out again, and stood about in listless groups. 
Not one of them made any attempt to play; the ears 
of all were turned toward the great bell that would by 
and by be summoning them to toil. Still watching, 
Royd saw that two or three of them—children whose 
faces held still a fragment of intelligence—were sliding 
off toward the row of pigsties that lined one wall of 
the yard. He followed them, and the listless groups 
shrank feebly from him, with the instinct of wild ani¬ 
mals, as he pushed his way between their ranks. As 
he neared the railings of the sties, he saw the adventu¬ 
rous three climb over, and mingle with the pigs, and 
fight with them for the meal-balls that had just been 
thrown to them. For Ephraim Booth was careful of 
his pigs, and fed them well, knowing that what he spent 
would come back to him again with increase. 

Like one in a nightmare, Royd stood and watched 
the grim contest of the human with the brute. He had 
heard much of this mill-life; he had thought to have 
plumbed in fancy its lowest depths; but what he saw 
here was unbelievable, if one had told him of it—was 
scarcely credible even now as it passed before his eyes. 

The pigs were well-used to the invasion, so it 
seemed; they had fifty ruses for securing their food, 
and the children tried to match their guile with greater 
guile. The overlooker—inevitable as the air they 
breathed—stepped in to shorten the impromptu meal. 
The lash came down, and the children scurried fast as 
they could climb across the fence; and the pigs were 
assured once more of a full meal. 

Stephen Royd turned then—the bell was already 


AT GOIT MILL 


337 


clanging out its summons—and untethered his horse 
from the gate and got to saddle. Ephraim Booth came 
down the lane at the same moment, on his way from 
Marshcotes, and he stopped on seeing Royd. 

“ Well, an’ what’s fresh wi’ ye, Maister Royd? ” he 
said. “ Come to do a bit o’ trade, like? If it’s yarn 
ye’re i’ search of ye mud as weel go back, for I’ve selled 
ivery pund this morn.” 

Royd stayed awhile looking with a kind of curiosity 
at the master of Goit Mill. “ I’ve seen strange sights 
in there,” he said, pointing backward to the yard— 
“ sights that have made me swear never to pass a 
penny-piece with you again.” 

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” cried Booth, leaning against 
the gate-post and surveying Royd in turn with 
interest. “ Well, ye’re a littlish man, as brass goes; 
I could chuck all th’ trade ye could bring me, an’ a 
dozen like ye, into th’ goit yonder, an’ niver miss it. 
Ye’re ower fine i’ t’ breed, Royd—a bit soft—as us o’ 
th’ new style reckon ye. Hes a child dropped a tear or 
two, or what, that ye’re all i’ a fine muck-sweat o’ 
pity?” 

“ It isn’t much I ask, after all,” said Royd, in the 
same matter-of-fact tone; “ I should like to see you get 
more work out of your spinners, at less cost to them; 
and I should like to see them fed as liberally as the pigs 
you’re fattening over yonder.” 

Ephraim Booth gasped. His astonishment was not 
feigned at all, but sincere as his greed, sincere as his 
cruelty. 

“Feed ’em as I feed th’ pigs?” he echoed. “Ye 


33 8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


get dafter ivery year, Royd o’ Hazel Miln. Do I work 
for brass, or for a bit o’ laking? I doan’t want to fat¬ 
ten th’ childer, do I ? I shall get no sides o’ bacon fro’ 
them. An’ a soft chap I should be to put a farthing’s 
weight more into their bellies nor what they’ll give out 
again i’ wark.” 

For the second time that morning Royd’s temper 
snapped. “ God help you,” was all he said, as he 
touched his horse’s flanks, afraid of the length to which 
his tongue might carry him if he allowed it licence. 

Yet as he rode home—rode through the quiet of the 
breezy uplands—he realised the idleness of meeting 
such as Ephraim Booth with anger or persuasion. The 
man was as God had made him, and as the man had 
helped to make himself—the first rough mould of char¬ 
acter still rougher. He was ridden by money as by 
a devil, the lust of money slept with him and waked 
with him, possessed him to the exclusion of all else. 
Not lust for the things that money would buy, not am¬ 
bition for the high places in the world which he might 
gain by its assistance—but lust of money for money’s 
own brute sake. As a character, he was complete 
within his own narrow limits; unstirred by pity, love, 
or hate, he followed his self-chosen road and never 
faltered by the way. 

And then Royd thought of his own love of land—the 
love that had kept his life-work wholesome. And he 
acknowledged, with a queer humility, that he, too, 
might have grown to be something of an Ephraim 
Booth had there been no long low house upon the hill to 
mark his road. Well, he had dreamed of throwing up 


AT GOIT MILL 


339 


this wool-trade altogether, and if he could not leave it 
as he had wished—master of the Heights and slave of 
Barbara—he had the easier task in abandoning his mill. 
What did it matter now whether he made money or 
not? His own needs were slight enough, and he would 
at least be free of this disastrous trade which ground lit¬ 
tle children under its unheeding wheels. Again he for¬ 
got his need of work; again he thought, with longing 
and relief, of a farmstead, a few score acres of hard 
land, and a life beneath God’s sky. 

Yet he was to change what was now a keen desire 
with him; he was to put his hand to the plough once 
again, and to drive a straight furrow—for another’s 
sake, as Parson Horrocks had foretold. Nor was he to 
do it by aid of money earned at Goit Mill, for a reason 
which Ephraim Booth could well have told him had he 
been so minded. 


CHAPTER XVII 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 

B ARBARA could not rest to-night; she felt closed 
in by the four walls of Wynyates, and liberty, it 
seemed—liberty of mind and of body—could 
only be found where the free wind blew across the 
moor. The weeks had passed since she plighted troth 
to Bancroft; but the grief of it was keen as ever. It 
might be four of the morning; across the blackness of 
the window-panes faint lights of grey were stealing, 
and the branches of the fir without threw feeble 
shadows on the glass. A solitary thrush was singing- 
in the dawn from the pear-tree on the wall, and rooks 
were fretting in the elms. 

She slipped to the floor and plunged her face into the 
ewer; then, donning frock and mantle, she went softly 
down the stair, undid the bolts of the main door and 
went out into the gathering day. She stopped a 
moment at the low wall, and reached over for a sprig of 
London pride, and listened to the throstle whose 
speckled breast showed clear against the gloomy 
branches of the fir. He sang as birds do sing in the 
early morning—as though his throat were not tuned 
yet to its true note, yet with a wealth of joy, a gay, 

340 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


341 


light-hearted rhapsody that told of hope. The world of 
moor and pasture was quiet—quiet with an intensity of 
stillness that almost weighed on one. The wind was 
cool, with promise of good warmth, and dew lay light 
as thistle-down upon the grey house-roof and on the 
grass-grown bridle-track. 

Still and grey the sky was yet, as Barbara went 
through the field gate and up toward the moor; but 
over all its face a vague light twinkled—twinkled and 
was gone, and came again; and ever the fluttering 
bands of light grew wider, and the morning star that 
watched above Lostwithens grew dimmer and more 
wan, and the throstles sang by threes now, where lately 
they had left the dawn-song to one lorn minstrel. Up 
and farther up went little Barbara, with the wind 
making playful snatches at her cloak—up until the 
rolling midnight of the hills stretched out and out be¬ 
fore her. Slowly their black chines lighted to the dawn 
—fitfully, as the sky itself had done—and slowly the 
purple crept into the surly pools of night that filled 
their basins. It was the purple, deep, velvety and 
mystical, which comes only at break of dawn or fall 
of gloaming, and the sight of it brought a strange awe, 
and a stranger peace, to Barbara’s troubled face. For 
self was lost here, and the fret of human circumstance 
dwindled to its true significance. What mattered it 
that a maid here or a man there had lost the birthright 
of their happiness? Such things had been, and maid 
and man had lived their little span, and peat lay over 
them and all their sorrows; but the hills, and the mov¬ 
ing pageant of rose-lights and purples, and the stark, 


342 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


dawn-lit waste of ling—these were from of old, and a 
whole life’s tragedy was less than one miracle of sun- 
birth such as this. 

Barbara stood there for long, her eyes upon the hills; 
and, as she watched, the grey patches of the sky grew 
pink as the petals of a dog-rose—there was a sudden 
hush, a sense as if the earth were gathering up her 
thews for one vast effort—and the sun came up in glory 
and in flame from his far journey over-seas. The moor 
turned from sleep, and opened countless eyes—of dew- 
frost, flower, and water—to welcome the bridegroom of 
her choice; and fold by fold the hill-mists lifted, as if 
the new-awakened land were throwing off the fleecy 
coverings of night. 

Still Barbara watched—a straight, slight figure out¬ 
lined clear against the sky—watched while strange 
lights, of tints and softness unbelievable, flickered and 
pulsed above the dark edge of the heath. Now a wave 
of crimson swept upward from the east, swift and vivid 
and triumphant; a wave of purple followed, and again 
withdrew; the day’s spendthrift hour was come, and 
Barbara’s eyes—wide-open as they ranged the sky, and 
big with a sense of mystery—could find no rest from 
the shifting lights—dove-grey, purple-grey, light green 
and brown and sepia—that overspread the heavens. 
Beneath it all the moor stretched wide and knew no 
borderland. It was in such hours that Barbara thrilled 
with that sense of the worthiness of life which in itself 
is prayer; all things were possible, all things were 
worthy—and faith was justified in the strong God who 
sets us here to come, through love and soul-travail and 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


343 


sorrow of the flesh, to an understanding of the deep 
purpose of the world. 

“ It is so true—so true, and free, and godlike,” she 
murmured breathlessly. 

She turned to go at last, and turned again for a last 
backward look; and as she looked toward the northern 
line of hills, she saw a wide-shouldered figure come 
swinging over the hill-crest not half a mile away. 
Surprise was her first thought—surprise and a wish to 
hide herself from Stephen Royd; but that passed 
quickly. The sense was strong on her that all this had 
happened before, in some forgotten fairy-land of dawn 
and heather-dew; Stephen was here by right; she 
would wait for him, and let his eyes seek hers, and be 
content. To him, too, the meeting seemed forefated, 
and when they met on the crest of the next dingle, he 
just took both her hands in his, frankly and masterfully. 
The witchery of dawn and wind was on them, and 
Barbara felt as if, spirits loosed from the prison-house, 
they had come to revel where the sky was big above 
the big, free waste. She was free of her troth to Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights—free for the nonce in fancy—and 
she and Stephen, here upon the dawn-lit moor, were 
friend and friend together. The same thought was in 
the minds of both, for he smiled with the old frankness, 
and, “ Babs,” he said, “ I’ve found my little playmate.” 

She did not answer for awhile, but plucked a handful 
of rushes and pulled them one by one to pieces. Then, 
“ Take me away, Stephen,” she cried, stirred by the old 
rebellious blood; “take me away for one whole day, 
and let me feel the sunlight.” 


344 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Not lightly had Barbara let the weeks of trouble— 
trouble the bitterer for its loneliness—come to a head 
in that one passionate plea for sunlight. She was a 
child again, out on the open moor with her old comrade, 
and Royd’s strength—her own need of strength to rest 
against—overmastered for the moment her woman’s 
instinct of reticence. And she touched a chord in 
Royd that had lain idle longer than was good for him; 
she made herself in very fact a child again to him—the 
one child who could claim his sympathy. To be sure, 
he remembered the day’s business that was waiting for 
him, for second nature does not yield without a protest; 
but that slipped off from him, as he sought her eyes 
again, and laughed light-heartedly. 

“ We’ll go to Wyecollar,” he cried,—“ Bab’s we’ll go 
to Wyecollar, and breakfast there, and go over all the 
haunts of bad old Simon Cunliffe, your ancestor.” 

“ Indeed, he was not bad,” she retorted; “ he was a 
very gallant gentleman, Stephen, and—” 

“ And a kind husband,” he added teasingly. “ Did 
he not ride up the stairs into his wife’s room, with all 
the babel of the hunt in front of him ? And did he not 
chide her when she screamed in protest? Answer me 
that, Barbara.” 

“ His wife, I think, was too faint-hearted; and I’m 
very fond of old Squire Cunliffe, Stephen. Can we 
really go to Wyecollar, think you?” 

“ Not a doubt of it. There’s a peewit yonder by the 
tarn and a moor-sheep cropping on the slope—will they 
say us nay, Babs ? And if not they, then who will ? ” 
“But father? He will miss me at the breakfast- 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


345 


table,” she said, looking as she had looked long since, 
when anxious for an escapade and asking Royd to find 
excuse for her. 

“ Well, then, we cannot have a day together—but go 
to Wyecollar we will, and I’ll bring you home by break- 
fast-time. We’re early birds, you and I, and we’ve half 
a day before the breakfast-hour. Come, child,” he 
added, as she hesitated now, “ it is over late in life to 
begin crossing any of my whims.” 

She laughed a little, with quiet content, and went 
beside him up the slope, while the sun changed from 
red to crocus-gold, and the dew receded step by glitter¬ 
ing step at the sun’s touch, and yellow asphodel laughed 
up at them from the fringe of many a bogland patch. 

“ How did you come to be up here? ” asked Barbara 
by and by. “ It is very well for me, Stephen, who have 
no long day of work before me.” 

“ Yet it was just that which took me wandering all 
the night—for I have to make my mind up, and act on 
it before the day is out. No, not one question, Babs, 
not one! We’ll make the most of this good fortune.” 

Long since they had learned the sympathetic speech 
of silence, these two whose friendship had been inter¬ 
rupted for so long; and not a word was spoken till they 
came in sight of Bouldsworth Hill, with its round 
crown curved against the red and saffron of the sky. 
Twice their eyes had met—once when they disturbed a 
cock-grouse who was following a well-worn feeding- 
trail, and again when they crossed a patch of bracken 
just unfurled and smelt the subtlest and the sweetest 
fragrance that the heath has to give; and scent of the 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


346 

greening bracken and cry of the startled grouse awak¬ 
ened deeper memories in both than they could put to 
words. 

“ Do you know your way, Stephen ? ” she asked at 
last, with a glance of mischief. “ You have lived so 
long in mills, and there is never a track, you know, 
from here to Wyecollar.” 

He looked at Bouldsworth Hill and laughed. “ Due 
west by the sun from round old Bouldsworth yonder,” 
he said. “ Do you think I have forgotten all the ways 
of freedom, Babs? ” 

“ We both have,” she cried, and repented the sorrow¬ 
ful tone which matched the day so ill. “ Stephen,” she 
went on quickly, lest he should add anything to this, 
her second confession, “ Stephen, you will not come out 
at Wyecollar Dene; I know you will not; it is difficult 
even when one has followed the moor-track only 
yesterday.” 

“ And we ? It must be two whole years since we last 
found the way together. Still, I have faith, Babs.” 

“ And I have none, for I’m in a master-weaver’s 
hands—not in Stephen’s, who used to know each hillock 
and each wrinkle of the moor.” 

Another silence, broken by Barbara as the hills of 
Lancashire stepped boldly into view. Pendle, round as 
Bouldsworth and thrice as big, with the steep bluff 
slope that marked him, stood up above the swart line 
of his brethren, and in between a desolate stretch of 
moor swept skyward over peat, and bog, and lonely 
channels of streams that had no music. With the sun 
shadows for guides across the trackless moor, they still 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 347 

kept forward, until at last they struck a rutty high¬ 
way. 

“What did I tell you, Babs? Yonder’s the dene 
and we’re not fifty yards beyond our reckoning,” cried 
Stephen. 

“ I wronged you—and you’re not the master-weaver 
any longer,” she added, with a laughing glance. 

They left the road almost as soon as they had found 
it, and dropped down into the hollow until the open 
moor lay spread before them. A true dene, this bonnie 
Wyecollar—narrow, moor-rimmed, yet with a wealth 
of softness in it the greater for the contrast with the 
bleak uplands that shut it in. 

The charm it had had of old for them, it had to-day 
—the strange and never-varying charm that spelt 
Wyecollar. The path beside the stream was spanned 
by as many bridges almost as there were houses in the 
hamlet. Here was a solid length of stone, so long it 
seemed at first sight it must be a trunk of beech or ash; 
then came a dainty bridge with a double arch, with 
wall-flowers growing in every cranny that could har¬ 
bour soil; after that a one arched bridge, and so all 
down the streamway till the road ran free of houses out 
to Lanshaw Brigg. 

Never to her life’s end did Barbara forget that day. 
The sweetness of the wind, with gorse and heather, 
ling and peat, adding each its perfume to that nameless 
odour of the summer which filled the sheltered dene— 
the cool sky overhead—the remembered houses and 
unforgotten nooks of this lone corner of the moors— 
all played the one sweet tune for her. It was childhood 


348 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


back again, and yet she was a woman to know and 
understand the joy of it. They had no thought of what 
was passed, of what was to come; the sunlit present 
only beckoned them. A mistal-door stood open as 
they went by, and Barbara peeped in to smell the well¬ 
loved reek, to see the stalls—empty now, for the kine 
were at summer pasturage—to renew acquaintance 
with the stream that rippled over the stone floor. 

“ All as it was, Stephen,” she cried; “ never a trace 
of change, is there, in sleepy Wyecollar? ” 

“ I wonder if the breakfasts are the same,” said 
Royd. “ Shall we go see, Babette? ” 

They went back along the stream-side then, and in 
at the stone porch of a farmstead on their right; old 
friends of both were breakfasting within, and they sat 
down as naturally as if they had been here but yesterday 
together. And still the same mood held them—held 
them until they were out into the road again and near¬ 
ing the old Hall, which was steeped to its roof-stones 
with memories of roysterers dead and gone. 

The main gate and the main door, with its two holly 
trees over-topping the house-gables, stood open, and 
they passed into the great dining-hall. A hall for 
wassail and for feast, with its twelve windows looking 
toward the south, its height and length and breadth. 
The dogs still stood within the fireplace, under the 
great chimney and fronting the stone seat where twenty 
folk could foregather of a winter’s even, and listen to 
the trumpet of the wind high up among the moors, and 
pass the bowl with ever-gaining speed. The little oven 
on the right hand of the hearth—the door to the inner 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


349 


room with the date of 1596 upon it—all was familiar 
to Barbara as if she, a Cunliffe, had lived with the 
Cunliffes of the old time and had sat at meat with them. 

“ Come to the stairway, Stephen,” she cried. “ We 
must see where old Squire Simon left his traces long 
ago.” 

Yes, there were the clear hoof-prints on the stone 
steps up which old Simon Cunliffe had ridden in the 
wake of fox and hounds—on the second step, and on 
the topmost step but one. 

“ What is the tale again, Barbara ? ” asked Royd, as 
he eyed the hoof-prints. 

“ Nay, it is old to you by this time.” 

“ So old as to be all but forgotten.” 

“ Well, he went a-hunting once on a day—it was in 
Charles the Second’s time, we’re told—and the fox led 
them a five-mile chase across the moors until he came 
to Wyecollar Dene. He crossed the stream between 
the straight bridge and the double-arched, and would 
have turned down the village; but the hounds headed 
him, and he ran straight as a die through the open 
main door of the hall, and up the stair here; the hounds 
followed, and after them the old Squire spurred his 
horse right up the stair, and into his wife’s room, where 
she had been busy with her tiring-maid until the entry 
of the fox disturbed them. The wife screamed aloud 
in terror—for the hound’s teeth were already in the fox, 
and the music of the hunt was deafening—and Simon 
Cunliffe swore a great oath, and cursed her chicken¬ 
heartedness, and raised his hunting-crop as if to strike 
her. That and the fright together killed her, so they 


350 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


say, and all in haste the Squire drove out the hounds, 
lest they should turn upon his fallen lady.” 

“ A good tale, Babs—it has the old stuff in it,” cried 
Royd. 

“ He was right to chide her—and he did not touch 
her with the whip,” said Barbara, with an eager sparkle 
in her eyes. “ Had I been she, Stephen, I should have 
clapped my hands to see the brave sport through.” 

“ You would,” he answered slowly, his eyes upon her 
face. “ Yes, you’re a Cunliffe to your finger-tips. So 
you think it shame, Babs, that old Simon Cunliffe 
should be condemned to ride through all the centuries 
for his misdoing? ” 

She glanced behind; broad daylight as it was, she 
had expected to see the Squire, and his spectral hounds, 
and the ghost of a hard-driven fox, come pelting up the 
stair on dumb and hurried feet. 

“ It is no use to smile, Stephen,” she murmured. 
“ He rides, and he will ride so long as there’s a Cun¬ 
liffe on the moorside.—Hark, do you hear? Do you 
hear?” 

Clear up the dene there came an eerie note, like the 
blare of a hunting-horn, fast-travelling in the wake of a 
gusty breeze. Barbara heard it, and so did Royd, and 
they stood looking at each other until long after the 
sound had gone dying down the valley. 

Barbara, to change the current of her thoughts, 
pointed to the stone shields on either side the hearth 
which carried the arms of the Cunliffes and their life- 
story. A hare in full flight, followed by the hounds in 
full cry, with a huntsman galloping after. “ That, 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


35i 


too, is like the Cunliffes, through and through. You 
remember the last of the Wyecollar Cunliffes, Stephen ? 
He was the sturdiest of them all, I think, and the keen¬ 
est to follow wherever the hounds led/’ 

“ He was like my father,” said Royd quietly. It was 
in some ways the sincerest praise that he could give 
any man. 

“ And how we have altered, all of us,” she mur¬ 
mured, leaning against the side of the hearth-place and 
looking gravely at him. “ My father busy with his 
chemicals—you with your trade. Stephen, are we fall¬ 
ing on worse days ? ” 

“ They tell us not,” he answered moodily. “ They 
say we are to learn more than ever our fathers 
dreamed of.” 

“ They say! Ah, yes—but they say untrue and fool¬ 
ish things oftener than they say wise ones.” 

A sudden need came to him to unburden himself to 
this woman who so short a while ago had been a child, 
and full in sympathy with him. His need of compan¬ 
ionship made comradeship a doubly precious thing once 
he had found it. He dropped into a seat beside her in 
the ingle-nook; and here, where the lusty forebears of 
her race had passed the wine-song or the hunting-tale, 
he told her some of the iniquities of modern trade—told 
them, with the free wind fluting downward from the 
moor, and the throstles singing, and the starlings chirp¬ 
ing in the eaves. It was a strange contrast, and Royd’s 
tale was one that might well have caused the old, free¬ 
riding Cunliffes to smile in derision at the newer race. 
They had been rough in their way, but it was a bluff, 


35 2 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


healthy, out-of-doors way, that had no kinship with the 
roughnesses of trade. Barbara’s face was saddened as 
they went out by the main door, and across the court¬ 
yard, and into the road beside the stream. “ Old days 
are best,” she said, stooping to pluck a double daisy 
from beside the path. “ I wish we were back, Stephen, 
you and I, among the folk who drank there and were 
merry.” 

“ We should find them—what we find the Ling Crag 
and the Wyecollar folk of to-day. They would love, 
and they would hate—they’d be honest and thievish, 
comely and ill-featured—some would marry and repent, 
others would—” 

“ Fie, sir! You are in no fit humour for Wyecollar. 
Are you a little sick at heart, Stephen ? ” she added, 
with a quick change of voice. 

He laughed. “ Sick at heart ? Did we not say we 
were making holiday? ” 

“True; but the children tire sometimes amid their 
merrymaking.” 

“ Babette,” he said, stooping to look into her face, 
“ Babette, we shall be growing over-serious unless we 
have a care—and Squire Cunliffe will be awaiting you 
at breakfast.” 

“At Wynyates?” she laughed. “Stephen, we’ve 
come far, haven’t we ? and even at that we have break¬ 
fasted two hours or so before our friends.” Again she 
turned for a last look at Wyecollar, and again the 
shadow crossed her face; they were ill-fated, all the 
Cunliffes, and she not less than any of them. 

“ Oh, come away, Stephen! ” she murmured, turning 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


353 


to climb the lane, winding and grass-grown, which 
once had been a trim-kept carriage-way. 

That old thorn-bordered lane with the wild-rose faces 
peeping out at her from either bank! It roused the 
tenderest memories of all in Barbara. How often she 
had pictured men and maidens riding homeward from 
the hunt down this same lane; had listened, in fancy, 
to their talk, and had woven about them many a strange 
romance of other days. There were late violets bloom¬ 
ing in the deep grass-bank on either hand of the road; 
once she had thought them eyes of the tender past, 
still watching the more sordid issues of the present; 
she thought so still, even while she laughed at herself 
for harbouring such childish fancies. Rough under¬ 
foot, neglected, a world away from the haunts of men, 
was this old-time carriage-way of the Cunliffes; only 
the ghosts of the past had right-of-way here now, and 
Barbara told herself that she and Stephen were sadly 
out of place—that surely they should have ruffs and 
farthingales, or Stuart bravery, to flaunt in the pink 
faces of the hedge-roses. Yet Barbara’s heart, and 
Barbara’s flower-like face, and Barbara’s proud and 
lissom carriage, were full in keeping with the days of 
old; and Stephen, stealing a glance at her, wondered if 
any ancestress of hers had walked this way who would 
not have envied Barbara her charm. 

The road turned sharply, and above them showed the 
old gateway, with its rounded balls still topping the 
square uprights; and across the line of the gateway 
struck the yellow road that led from Yorkshire into 
Lancashire. A train of pack-horses was passing at the 


354 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


moment, with wool-sacks slung across their wooden 
saddles. 

“ The voice of to-day again,” murmured Barbara, 
pointing to the horses. 

Royd turned his back deliberately. There was only 
the curve of the road below him—that, and the redden¬ 
ing thorns, and the smell of lusty summer. In front 
might be the unrest of to-day, the barter and the strife 
—but below here all was peace. 

“ Babs,” he said, with sudden heat, “ I’m weary of 
it all ” 

Instinctively she laid a hand upon his arm. “ Yet 
you have done so well, Stephen,” she said. 

“Well? What does it mean, this doing well? I’m 
rich, as men go. I have gold, little Barbara—and after 
that, what ? Where will the human touch come in ? ” 
His voice grew husky on the sudden, “ Babs, what use 
is all my money to me ? ” he repeated, with passionate 
intensity. 

She raised her eyes to his, and met them with one 
long, startled glance; and they understood what never 
in this world would they forget. He hesitated, striving 
with his worse self, then moved slowly up the slope 
beside her in silence—yet not in the friendly, all- 
sufficing silence that had held them as they crossed 
the moor. 

They passed between the grey old gate-stones, with 
their memories of old revelries, old courtesies, old 
tragedies and comedies. They went, still in the same 
silence, up the sandy road and on past the Herders 
Tavern, where Lavrock, too, with his old-fashioned 


LOVE LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


355 


notions of ease and open-handedness upon the part of 
travellers, had striven unsuccessfully against the newer 
order. 

“ And you are going to marry Bancroft of the 
Heights,” said Royd slowly. 

“ Yes, I am going to marry Mr. Bancroft,” she said, 
half fearfully, half firmly. 

The crucial moment of Royd’s life had come, had he 
but known it. Temptation was strong on him to play 
the master here, as he had played the master through¬ 
out life—to tell her that he, not Bancroft, was her 
mate. For a moment the matter hung doubtful in the 
balance; and Barbara, knowing it, prayed fiercely that 
Stephen would come through the trial, lest ever after¬ 
wards he should be a little less than Stephen to her. 

“ The wind blows colder than it did,” he said at last, 
and laughed in a dry, empty fashion that startled his 
companion. 

He had triumphed, and she was glad of it; but duty, 
for all that, was a colder thing just now to Barbara 
than any breeze that blew athwart old Wyecollar. 

“ Take me home again, Stephen,” she murmured. 
“ I am tired, I think, and the sunshine only hurts me 
now Eve found it.” 

They walked in silence round the bend of Dangerous 
Corner, and down the hill, and up the grass-grown 
bridle-way that climbed to the grey house of Wynyates. 
Barbara stopped then, and looked for a moment into 
Royd’s face as she said farewell. 

“ How the wind moaned at Wyecollar,” she mur- 
mured,—“ Stephen, how it moaned! ” 


35^ 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Let the wind blow if it lists,” he muttered, while he 
picked his way down the stoney lane beside the 
stream. “ It can bring no further lucklessness to me at 
anyrate.” 

His father’s temper was showing itself again; if 
much was gone, all was gone, and he threw a reckless 
challenge out to fate to do its worst. But for this 
mood in the father, the grass might well have been 
growing now over a grave more honoured, and the 
Heights have known no change of master; yet 
Stephen did not stay to think of this as he strode down 
the Dene not heeding the sunlight on the ~lope. 

He scarce understood what ailed him, nor guessed 
that knowledge of what might have been—the knowl¬ 
edge that he had gleaned that day—was making him 
restless beyond bearing. 

To his surprise he saw Booth of Goit Mill waiting 
for him at his door. 

“ Are ye thrang? ” said Booth, with a curt nod. 

“ Not if you have come on business,” answered the 
other, with equal curtness. 

“ Then I’ll step forrard* like, an’ sit me down, for 
what I’ve come to say will bide some telling.” 

Royd made way for him. “ It is an early hour for a 
visit,” he said, motioning him into the little living- 
room. “ Can I offer you anything? ” 

“ Well, as you put it that way, I’ll hev a sup o’ wine. 
I war niver one to pass owt by, drink, or victuals, or 
brass, when it war offered. What say ye, Maister 
Royd?” 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


357 


Royd smiled in his grim fashion. “ It depends 
upon the giver, Mr. Booth.” 

"Ay, there ye go! What did I say when first I 
heard ye’d ta’en Hazel Miln ? Stephen Royd belangs 
t* quality, I said, an’ he’ll hev notions, I said, an’ he’ll 
niver learn to lap up all that’s offered, same as a cat 
’ull lap up cream. That’s what I said, an’ it’s as true 
to-day as it war twenty years ago.” 

“ Possibly. You like the wine? Then let me fill you 
another measure.” 

“ Now then,” said Booth, soon as his glass had been 
replenished—“ straight to t’ point is better nor guineas, 
as t’ saying is, an’ I’ve come to ye wi’ a bit of a diffi¬ 
culty, Maister Royd.” 

“ Indeed?” 

“ Ay, I’m feeling t’ pinch of all these strikes an’ 
failures, an’ that’s truth. Mebbe we hevn’t been worse 
friends because we’ve fratched a bit, like, now an’ 
again? Mebbe we’ll live an’ lat live, ye an’ me, an’ 
shake hands ower owd times? ” 

“ We have been neither friendly nor unfriendly, Mr. 
Booth; if there is anything in the strict way of busi¬ 
ness—” 

“ Weel, it’s business an’ it isn’t, just as ye choose to 
look at it. I’m hard pressed, an’ I’ve some calls to 
meet i’ a week’s time; if I can tide over that, I shall be 
on my legs again.” 

“ I am sorry, of course, to hear it—but how can I 
assist you? ” said Royd, seeing that his guest was wait¬ 
ing for him to speak. 


35» 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ By lending me, say five thousand punds; that’s how 
ye can help me.” 

Royd laughed, as he got to his feet and stood against 
the mantel. “You have come to an empty nest, on your 
own showing,” he said. “ I’m a poor man, Mr. Booth, 
as you have often told me.” 

“ I war mista’en, as I happened to learn a while 
back. Ye’re warm, warm, they tell me, since ye kept 
your men at work while other maisters played.” 

“ They say many things in Ling Crag, and I would 
not credit gossip, if I were you. No, Mr. Booth; we 
are agreed that I am poor.” 

“ That means ye willun’t lend ? ” 

“ It means exactly what I say, and what you have 
said times without number. Look at the size of this 
little mill of mine; do you think it worth a thousand 
pounds all told ? ” 

Booth in his turn got to his feet and began to pace 
restlessly up and down the floor. “ Ye’re shrewd 
—shrewder nor I thowt ye,” he growled. “ Nay, don’t 
stand there, an’ look me up an’ down, an’ reckon it’s 
all play-word, this. I mun hev t’ brass, one way or 
another, an’ that’s plain truth.” 

“ You must borrow from a richer man, I fear.” 

“ Rich men are getting scarce, an’ they’re varry shy 
o’ lending nowadays. We’ll put it another way, then. 
I’m in your debt to th’ tune o’ three thousand punds or 
theerabouts.” 

“ Three thousand and fifty, to be exact. Well, Mr. 
Booth?” 

“ Well, if I can’t tide ower this pass, I may pay five 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 


359 


shillings i’ th’ pund—mebbe less. If I can tide ower, 
your brass ’ull be as safe as rick.” 

“ I must take my chance, Mr. Booth,” said Royd; 
“ what money I have is all locked up, and in any case 
I do not care to lend.” 

Booth knew that tone of his host’s, it was decisive, 
and denied all further argument. “ Well, ye knaw 
best, though I’m thinking ye mak a big mistake. 
There’s nobody likes to fail, is there, Maister Royd ? ” 

Much as he knew of the other’s methods, Stephen 
was half sorry for him now. He had not thought that 
the rough cruel face could grow almost wistful; yet 
wistful it was, for Booth was looking forward and see¬ 
ing his money the one thing on earth he loved, slip 
from his hands just when he had thought it sure—and 
all for want of a poor few thousand pounds. 

“ I am sorry,” he repeated—“ very sorry, Mr. 
Booth.” 

“ An' so will young Bancroft be, I reckon,” said 
Booth, with a surly gleam of humour. “ He found my 
lass more to his liking nor Squire Cunliffe’s proud little 
wench—an’ she war so set on his looks, an’ his seat on 
horseback, an’ his cantrips, that nowt would serve but 
she mun hev him.” 

“ Her choice was fortunate,” said Royd drily. 

“ Well, I’d no mind to interfere wi’ that. Wool’s 
my business, not wenches; an’ if Bancroft wanted to 
wed her, I war willing to do summat handsome for 
them i’t’ way o’ brass. Brass should mate wi’ brass, I 
alius did say, an’ Bancroft is as warm as any man i’ tlT 
moorside, I reckon.” 


3 6 ° 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Possibly. You will take another glass of wine, 
Mr. Booth, before you leave ? ” 

“ Ay, to drink ill-luck out, though I’d liefer hev 
drunk gooid luck in, an’ that’s a fact. There’s no 
chance, ye think, that ye’ll change your mind in a 
while?” 

Royd shook his head as he ushered his guest out 
into the millyard. “ I will not press for the money 
you owe me, if you can borrow the remainder,” he said. 

Booth turned to give him an inquiring glance. 
“ Stephen Royd was harder when I saw him last,” he 
muttered. 

“ He was—and since then he has known ill-luck, just 
as his neighbours have. Good morning to you.” 

The master weaver stood there long after the sound 
of footsteps had died down the dene. Troubles were 
thickening about him still, it seemed; Booth’s was but 
one of many failures, a succession of such debts might 
beggar Royd within the month. 

“ There’s still the mortgage on the Heights; I might 
raise money upon that,” he murmured. 

Yet his glance went up toward the valley-top from 
which he had watched, night after night, this house of 
his desire; and he told himself that he would never, 
come what might, imperil his chance of owning it one 
day. He had secured the mortgage after long waiting, 
and if he could not yet, for Barbara’s sake, make use of 
his advantage, his opportunity might come when least 
he looked for it. For Barbara, after all, might not 
marry the present master of the Heights, remote as 


LOVE-LIGHT IN THE DAWN 361 

seemed the hope—and in that case he would be free to 
press his advantage to the full. 

“ It would be like cutting off a hand to give up the 
mortgage now; better be beggared outright/’ he broke 
off, turning moodily indoors again. “ How the wind 
snarls! It was idle to defy it.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE SOUTH WIND BLOWS 

I T was the hour of milking lcine. The shadows 
lengthened from the moor, and the throstles sang 
of a gloaming soon to fall. Down the steep 
fields the cattle came, with udders swaying from the 
right hand to the left, and in their faces that look of 
trustfulness in men to ease their burden that gives all 
cattle a kinship and a friendship with ourselves. 

“Milking-time, Tabitha?” said Tim o’ Tab's, com¬ 
ing round the corner of the farmstead. 

“ Ay, an’ I’ve to milk the six o’ them,” answered 
Tabitha, shifting the milking-stool from the right arm 
to the left. “ Wilt help me, Tim? ” 

“ I should think it likely, lass. By th’ Heart, yond 
dappled heifer carries full bags. She’s a new un, an’ 
all. What did thy father gi’e for her, dost call to 
mind? ” 

“ Nay, I knawn’t. Ten pund or theerabouts.” 

“ Well, she’s cheap at that, for I niver saw her like 
for snodness. Ye needn’t tell your father so, mind ye, 
or he’ll think hisseln a prime man at a bargain, an’ I 
should be fashed to hev him think what warn’t no way 
true.” 

“ Father says just th’ same o’ thee, Tim,” she 
362 


THE SOUTH WIND BLOWS 363 

laughed, with a glance that did much to ruin Tim’s dis¬ 
cretion. 

“ What, says I’m no hand at a bargain? ” echoed the 
other. “ Why, I niver remember a time, when I warn’t 
awther swopping or selling. I began i’ th’ cradle, I’ve 
a fancy.” 

Again Tabitha laughed. “ I’ th’ cradle? ” she mur¬ 
mured. “ Tha’d be a fearful queer un to look at i’ long 
clothes.” 

“ I doan’t recall,” said Tim o’ Tab’s gravely; “but 
my mother alius said I war th’ grandest babby to be 
fund i’ all th’ moorside—an’ she should knaw, I reckon. 
It war i’ th’ up-growing ’at I fell off—grew to stalk, 
as th’ saying is.” 

The dappled heifer lifted her patient head, and lowed 
in protest as she pushed her muzzle into Tabitha’s face. 

“ Th’ poor beast is right, Tim,” cried the lass, as she 
set down the milking-stool and pulled her pail forward. 
“ It’s sin an’ shame to stand gossiping here when all th’ 
while there’s six poor cows biding to be loosened o’ their 
milk. Art noan bahn to help me ? ” 

“ I am that,” said Tim, but did not shift from his easy 
lolling against the bridge; and his eyes were fixed, not 
on the cows, but upon Tabitha’s firm, rounded arms 
and Tabitha’s wind-sweetened cheeks. 

“ Go into th’ house, then; tha’ll find a stool an’ a 
bucket just behind th’ door,” she went on briskly, with 
only a touch of frolic in her eyes to tell that she was 
conscious of the other’s glance. 

Tim got slowly up, and in the few yards that lay 
between him and the house he found time to tell himself 


3 6 4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


that all his fine resolves were weakening. It was easy, 
somehow, with only the silence of the moors about him, 
and only remembrance of Tabitha for company, to vow 
that he would be loyal to Squire Cunliffe’s secret, easy 
to mistrust a woman’s tongue-stillness; but such scru¬ 
ples wore a different air just now. 

He came back in a moment, set down his stool and 
pail beside a second cow, as soberly as Tabitha had 
done, and began to press the teeming udders with 
fingers that were nimble at the job. For awhile they 
sat there, side by side, each apparently absorbed in the 
present labour, each wondering why the other was so 
slow of speech. And the wonder of a first love ripening 
to fruition stole over Tim o’ Tab’s. The warm steam 
of the milk, the rich, sweet savour of the cattle’s breath, 
the sunlit evening peace and the falling breeze that had 
a scent of hay in it—could any man, whose backward 
days were all bound up in such-like scents and sounds, 
hear any call but nature’s at such an hour ? Each man 
for his own hand, when women were in case, and the 
Squire’s secret must be kept or lost according to the 
will of Tabitha. 

“ Tha looks likelier now nor tha did one Sabbath 
morn I call to mind,” said Tabitha presently, watching 
the bubbles skim white across the surface of the pail. 

A momentary confusion seized on Tim. “ It’s noan 
easy to look likely wi’ your legs i’ th’ stocks, an’ your 
head i’ th’ middle of an oven,—for it war hot enow to 
bake your bread for ye that morn,—Tabitha, lass; ” he 
added, after a pause, “ I’d liefer ye hedn’t passed by that 
way.” 


THE SOUTH WIND BLOWS 365 

“An’ so hed I. It’s ill wark being shamed o’ them 
ye’ve liked.” 

Tim stopped his milking and looked across at her. 
He remembered how, shamed or no, she had stopped in 
the open street, in the face of curious glances, to talk 
with him. He seemed to realize, without even thinking 
it, what staunch comrades to a man these women could 
be, with all their whimsies and their crooked ways of 
reaching a straight goal; but more than all he realized 
that this lass, sitting on a three-legged stool and splash¬ 
ing milk into a pail, was sweeter to him than any other 
thing beneath the sun. 

“ I’ve been thinking lately, Tabitha,” he said, resum¬ 
ing his labor as the white cow looked round at him with 
question and reproach. 

“ I wodn’t, Tim, if I war ye,” she said demurely. “ It 
thins a man, does thinking, an’ ye’re ower spare al¬ 
ready.” 

“ That’s as may be—but I war thinking how Tabitha 
Hirst could mend me, if she hed a mind. It’s noan 
easy to keep free o’ mischief—I’m fonder o’ few things 
nor I am o’ mischief—but if tha’d tell me once for all it 
grieved thee—why—” 

Tabitha was silent, and Tim o’ Tab’s got up from his 
milking-stool and had an arm about her waist before 
she had done marvelling at his slowness. And then a 
gruff voice broke into their talk. 

“ What, tha’rt here again, tha lig-i-bed! ” cried 
Tabitha’s father, who had watched them all down the 
long path that led from Smithbank Farm. “ I willun’t 
hev thee on my doorstun, as I’ve telled thee. I live by 



366 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


wark, an’ Tabitha lives by wark, an’ that should be 
enough to keep thee off.” 

In a twinkling Tim was seated at his stool again, 
milking as if his life depended on it, and it was a very 
serious face he raised to meet Jonathan Hirst’s dour 
glance. 

“ Nay, I war nobbut helping Tabitha to milk,” he 
said. “ I fund her thrang, an’ four hands are better 
nor two, so I war alius telled.” 

Jonathan Hirst looked down upon the culprits—on 
Tim, with his face of innocence—on his daughter, 
whose eyes were bent upon her work. And, spite of 
himself, he could not hold his laughter back. 

“ Tha’rt a wastrel an’ a raffle-coppin, Tim; but tha 
carries it wi’ sich a lad-like face that a body can’t kick 
thee ower t’ beck, though I’ve getten a rare mind to. 
Tabitha, get thee into th’ house, lass, an’ I’ll finish thy 
milking for thee.” 

Tabitha stood over-much in awe of her father to dis¬ 
obey him, but the glance she gave to Tim o’ Tab’s as 
she went in at the house-door needed no words to help 
its meaning. Tim, too, was bustled off without great 
ceremony, but not until he had told himself in plain 
terms that his wooing, if interrupted once or twenty 
times, must now go forward; he could not get on any 
longer without Tabitha—that was a surety. 

It was later in the same evening, accordingly, that he 
came down the benty pasture-fields, while a young 
moon smiled at him from over the shoulder of the moor. 
He did not loiter, as his habit was, to search the ground 
for signs of bird and beast, but made for the low-walled 


THE SOUTH WIND BLOWS 


3 6 7 


strip of garden that lay between the farmstead and the 
sheltering hill. A rushlight burned in Tabitha’s win¬ 
dow, and Tim could see the movement of a hand to put 
it out soon as his whistle sounded like the crying of a 
peewit over the trim garden. He knew that she was 
coming then, and leaned his arms upon the wall, and let 
the sweetness of the summer’s night steal over him. 
The late rain and present warmth had brought a score 
new scents to birth. The wet earth, the currant trees, 
the bushy plants of lavender and lads’-love, lassies’-love 
and thyme and rue, each added its own fragrance to 
the night; and there was good promise, from the hives 
where the bees slept over their day’s labor, that some 
at least of all this summer sweetness was being stored 
up against the winter-time. 

Tim had a tender heart behind his graceless front, 
and thoughts that were worthy of the night, and worthy 
of his manhood, thronged in on him as he watched the 
silver of the moonlight grow brighter on the bents. 
Nay, who knows what dreams will not come to a man 
at such an hour, when a maid stands on the threshold 
of his hopes and brings with her the breath of summer 
gardens? Gentle or simple, we are all one in this, and 
the south wind of tenderness blows equally upon the 
rough skin and the smooth. 

He watched her come down between the gooseberry 
bushes, while the thorns caught slily at her gown in 
passing and counselled prudence. It did not seem that 
there was any need of words at all; he just reached 
out his hands across the wall, and drew her to him. 
He bruised the currant-bushes as he did so, and their 


3 68 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


crushed leaves gave out an added fragrance to the 
night. 

“ We mun be wed, lass, or I’ll die for lack of thee,” 
he said at last. 

He felt her strive against the pressure of his arms; 
she had been free for two-and-twenty years, and one 
last impulse of resistance had come to her. She tried 
to mock him, to use the glib tongue and the light 
laugh that never till to-night had failed her. And 
then she strove no longer; and instead of laughter 
there came the low sigh of surrender. 

“ I mun help thee to live, then lad,” she said. 

An owl, far up the dene, began to screech, but 
they did not hear him. The young moon paled and 
lost herself outright behind the gathering clouds; light 
rain began to follow in the wind’s wake down Hazel 
Dene; but they did not heed. 

Tabitha was sobbing now against Tim’s coat, with 
its stains of fur and feather, of rain and farmyard 
work; and he, with his new sense of the fitness of the 
world all foiled, was wondering how to comfort her 
in a sorrow that could have no real existence. Men 
have tried as much aforetime, but not always with the 
success that Tim o’ Tab’s .achieved to-night. 

“ Nay, lass, nay,” he murmured. “ What ails thee, 
then?” 

She threw her head back on the sudden, and tried to 
read his face by the dim light. “ Love comes light to 
some, an’ goes as light,” she said; “but it’s not so 
wi’ me. Tha’s hed a man’s way wi’ women here an’ 
there—nay, doan’t deny it, lad.” 


THE SOUTH WIND BLOWS 


3 6 9 


“ Fll noan deny it, Tabitha; I’d be shamed to,” he 
said simply. “ It takes a man hot when he least looks 
for t an’ lasses doan’t alius help him, maybe, when tlT 
spring is quick in ’em. An’ I’ll be fashed for it till I 
dee, for muck sticks, an’ ye can no way help it, if once 
ye choose to walk through’t.” 

“ I doan’t blame thee, Tim,”—she was still trying to 
read his face,—“ I’m only feared for what’s to come. 
Tim, will ye niver understand? I war born a woman 
—God help us all—an’ I love thee, lad.” 

There was not Tabitha’s love alone in this last con¬ 
fession, which was half a plea—there was the sorrow of 
giving, and the joy of giving, which the long line of her 
foremothers had known. 

“ Come thee back again,” said Tim, as he leaped the 
low wall and put his arms close round her once again, 
with new-found mastery; “ lig thy head on my shoulder, 
lass, an’ I’ll tell thee summat. Hev I iver shaped like a 
fly-by-night sin’ I learned to look for thy comings an’ 
thy goings ? Hev I iver thowt owt but th’ best on ye— 
an’ o’ myseln for loving thee?” 

“ I thowt not; I’d hev sworn it yesterday—but I’ve 
grown feared, Tim, an’ all sin’ I gave myseln to thee 
just now.” 

“Feared? Theer’s no fear, lass, save ’at we niver 
come to wedlock, me an’ thee.” 

A long silence; and then she leaned close to him. 
“ I trust thee, lad,” she said. 

Tim o’ Tab’s had loved the benty pasture-fields with 
the moonlight glinting on the cropping hares. He 
had loved the freedom of his days, and the life which, 


370 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


like the wind, blew whither it listed. But the sweetness 
of this moment, and the savour of it, he tasted for the 
first time. 

They were roused by the sound of a footfall striking 
on a stone that lay among the pasture-grass behind 
them. 

“ Who’s there, breaking th’ laws o’ this realm, as by 
King and Parliament established ? ” came a fat, self- 
satisfied voice. 

“ Billy Puff, I’ll—I’ll crack thy head wide-oppen an’ 
show its emptiness! ” cried Tim, angered to be intruded 
on by any man at such a time, but most of all by such 
an old-time enemy as the constable. 

“Wilt ’a, then? That’s treason, Tim o’ Tab’s— 
treason, I tell thee, as by King and Parliament estab¬ 
lished—is calling a constable o’ th’ peace an empty- 
headed chap. Howsiver, so long as Tabitha can trust 
ye near her fowls—I dursn’t myseln—I reckon I mun 
let ye bide.” 

With this farewell Billy turned him about again, and 
fetched a great laugh at his own wit, and disappeared 
among the night-shadows; while Tabitha pressed closer 
to the side of Tim o’ Tab’s, and felt the night-wind cool 
upon her cheek, and wondered how it came that there 
should be only one man in all the moorside—only one, 
and he a light-fingered ne’er-do-weel, who would likely 
break her heart one day. 

“ He mun break it, then,” said she to herself,—“ he 
mun break it—an’ I’ll niver cry out for that, I reckon.” 

Tim left her by and by, and set off up the field 


THE SOUTH WIND BLOWS 


37 1 

toward Smithbank Farm; and Tabitha leaned her trim 
arms on the wall and watched him out of sight. 

Scent of the bruised currant-leaves, warmth of the 
moor-wind down the dent—and from the field above the 
soft lowing of a heifer as it stirred in sleep. Tabitha 
Hirst was to grow old one day if God spared her—but 
the memory of every scent and sound of this sweet 
summer’s night was only to grow keener with the 
years. 

Tim o’ Tab’s had struck up Water Lane, meanwhile, 
and had gone briskly forward on the Wynyates road, 
until he stood beneath the faintly lighted window of the 
room above the laithe. As of old he heard the regular 
quiet sounds which marked the Squire’s industry; as of 
old, he sighed impatiently. 

“ Eh, Squire, but it’s time ye took a bit o’ rest at your 
age! ” he muttered. “An’ now I’m to be wed; an’ I 
doubt ye’ll tak it ill—I doubt ye’ll tak it varry ill, 
choose who th’ lass is.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


EVENSONG 

P ARSON HORROCKS had been to visit Lav- 
rock of the Herders, who lay ill of bronchitis; 
and as he came back along the dusty road he 
bethought him of the foot-track that went down to 
Goit’s Mill and out into the cart-road on the farther 
side. It would be cooler by that road, he told him¬ 
self, and moreover he ran risk of being late for even¬ 
song. The peace of a Sabbath afternoon lay over all 
the countryside; the cattle seemed to take their ease 
more restfully; the very sheep browsed with an added 
tranquillity, and from across the moor there came the 
softened cadence of the Marshcotes bells, calling the 
folk to praise and prayer. 

The Parson forgot the lateness of the hour, forgot 
that soon his congregation would be raising expectant 
faces toward the old, three-storied pulpit from under 
whose sounding-board the voice of many a long-dead 
pastor had carried consolation or rebuke to many a 
buried generation of the moor-folk. He was ageing a 
little, was Parson Horrocks, though neither so quickly 
nor so sadly as his friend the Squire; he was more 
prone, perhaps, to dwell upon the past, and less disposed 
to fill every moment of the day with action; and the 
sound of his own bells, threading through the hum 
372 


EVENSONG 


373 


of bees and lowing of the kine, stirred many a half- 
forgotten memory in him as he stood and watched the 
shadows climb up the grassy hollows of the fields. For 
thirty years he had fathered this heath-girt parish; for 
thirty years he had been gathering knowledge of its 
secrets; he had seen summer after summer bring seed 
and hay and harvest-time with them, and winter after 
winter break in upon the land, and strike it mute, and 
harden it on the sudden from comeliness to harshness. 
There was no farm, upon the heights or in the hollows, 
no little one-roomed cottage at the last edge of the 
wilderness, but what was known to him; and the broad 
issues of his people’s lives—their summer-days of hope 
and of endeavour, and the winters of their sorrow— 
were familiar to him as the changes of the seasons. And 
not the broad issues only; for, just as he knew where 
and when to seek the first celandines, the earliest bell- 
heather, or dog-roses, or harebells—just as he had 
learned the look of every wrinkled dene upon the 
heath-—so, too, he knew the lighter changes of the 
moor-folk’s moods, the changes which gave colour to 
their character. He spoke no less than the truth, 
indeed, when he said jestingly, to Royd or to the 
Squire, that his parish was a close and tender wife 
to him; and his eyes were dim a little, with a mist 
across them, as he looked over field and farmstead on 
this Sabbath evening and remembered how his wedded 
life had run. This queer land’s strength and all its 
weakness; its open churlishness, and the carefully hid¬ 
den places of its tenderness; the knotty skew-tempered 
folk who had not merely settled on the land, but 


374 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


who had grown out of the soil itself—he loved each 
separate item of his parish, and, because he had grown 
to love its faults as jealously as any other of its attri¬ 
butes, he showed himself a happily mated man. 

But then the Parson was one of them. He had their 
own prejudices, softened only by culture and ripe ex¬ 
perience; he had a little—nay, more than a little—of 
their superstition; he had their love of handicraft. The 
alphabet of farming he knew, and all its parts of speech; 
he could not only preach for the soul’s welfare of his 
flock upon a Sabbath, but could take his coat off on a 
weekday and show them how to sow, or reap, or till— 
could drive as straight a furrow as nine men out of ten 
in the parish—was intimate with the mysteries of dry¬ 
walling, and knew what medicine to give an ailing cow. 
And so his flock brought in their tithes with little 
grudging, since the land that furnished them was 
known to their pastor, rood by rood, and cared for; nor 
were they at any time disposed to question the force¬ 
fulness and true inspiration of his spiritual teaching, 
since they knew, each man of them, how true his farm¬ 
ing-gospel was. 

And here he stood; with the shadows creeping farther 
up the westward field-slopes, and the bells of his own 
grey kirk calling softly to him from across the moor 
and bidding him hasten—stood, and went, with remem¬ 
brance for a guide, down the rough ways and the smooth 
of years gone by. 

“ Thirty years! ” he murmured. “And my love 
ripening all the while. Thirty years! God make me 
worthy of my love for Marshcotes moorside. ,, 


EVENSONG 


375 


All that was prayerful in the man, all that was deep, 
sincere, and fervid, seemed loosed on the sudden from 
restraint; and his humility, plain in the rugged face 
and kindly eyes, seemed to add stature to him, and a 
dignity in keeping with the solemn hilltops that looked 
down upon his prayer. Awhile he stood there, with 
bared head; then, as he covered again and moved 
slowly down the slope, the old keen humour crept into 
his face. 

“ Well, well, it means thirty years of sermons, too,” 
he muttered. “ When will my good folk weary of 
them, and ask for a new turn of speech ? ” 

And then he laughed quietly to himself; for he knew 
that his folk would never weary of a friendship that was 
built on sure intimacy and length of mutual service. 
His face clouded again, however, soon as he reached 
the second stile and caught a glimpse of the roof of 
Goit Mill below him. Even at this distance, and with 
a little warmth of leafage hiding the roof-stones here 
and there, Goit Mill looked cold and harsh and alien; 
and a strange trouble and perplexity came into the 
Parson’s face as he looked down on it. For Goit Mill, 
and the new ways of which it was the symbol, formed 
the one evil of the moor-life which he was powerless to 
withstand even in slight measure. Royd’s little factory 
in Hazel Dene was different altogether; the master’s 
aims, the master’s sense of an ideal to be striven for, 
had clothed it, to the Parson’s mind, with a rude poetry 
of its own. There was play for humanity, play for a 
little soul-sweetening leisure at Hazel Mill; but here 
there was nothing but the one squalid fret of money- 


376 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


making and of ill-requited toil. The Parson was not 
thinking now of the past happy years; he was recalling, 
one by one, the sights he had seen in Goit Mill, the 
tales he had heard whispered in hushed voices about 
the cottage-hearths; he was wondering anew what 
chanced to the pauper imbeciles whom the State, of 
its tender pity, handed over to the care and keep of 
Ephraim Booth, the master of the mill below. 

His solitude was rudely broken; for over the little 
bridge across the beck a stumpy, thick-set figure passed, 
and came up the field towards him. It was Ephraim 
Booth himself, the master of the mill below. 

“ Gooid-even, Parson,” he said, with an unpleasant 
sideways glance. 

“ Good-even to you,” answered the other courte¬ 
ously. 

“ We’re both at our trades, I reckon—ye’re thinking 
out sermons, an’ I’m thinking out bargains.” 

“ Cannot you let barter rest for the one day? ” 

Ephraim Booth looked squarely at him, with the 
surprised air he always wore when a notion from 
without crossed his narrow field of view. “ What, an’ 
miss summat? Nay, Parson! We’ve all getten 
consciences, ye telled me once—an’ mine willun’t let 
me lose a single chance o’ making brass. Why, I’ve 
sold three pieces sin’ I left th’ miln! or as good as 
sold em’, for a bargain well thought out is a bargain 
made. Ye preach o’ Sundays—an’ I’ve knawn ye 
preach o’ weekdays, too. Well, it’s your trade, just as 
selling wefts an’ warps is my'trade.” 

The Parson was never one to throw religion broad- 


EVENSONG 


377 


cast; a man was an individual to him, and he met his 
fellows with the logic likeliest to move them. “ You 
know the ways of barter better than myself, Mr. 
Booth/’ he said, looking at the mill-owner with that 
steady, honest glance of his grey eyes which was apt 
to disconcert less hardened adversaries than Ephraim 
Booth. “Yet there's a law I never yet saw broken to 
any good purpose. Six days shalt thou labour—it’s 
nature’s law, as well as God’s.” 

“ Ye’re behind these new times, Parson, behind ’em 
altogether,” said the other, sticking a fat thumb in 
either arm-hole. “ I knaw nowt so mich about nature, 
but I’ve sarved my time i’ th’ wool trade—an’ it’s 
taught me to tak no day o’ rest at all if I can help it. 
I’d liefer by th’ half be at th’ miln to-day, but they 
willun’t let me work th’ childer; so I mun use gooid 
time i’ another way, an’ bargain part wheniver a chance 
o’ bargaining offers.” 

Parson Horrocks, glancing down toward the mill, 
saw a couple of children, weary and begrimed, come 
out of the mill-door; and Booth stepped hastily in 
front of his visitor. 

“ You cannot make the children labour on a Sunday? 
What are these doing, then? ” asked the Parson sternly. 

“ Nay, they’re nobbut ’prentices, an’ they’ve been 
cleaning up th’ machinery, like—we doan’t reckon that 
as labour. Come, now,” he added, with grim good- 
humour, “ I’ve knawn ye preach on a weekday, so it’s 
no more nor fair that ye should let me warlc a bit o’ 
Sundays.” 

“ I got little reward for my pains the last time I 


37 8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


preached upon a weekday,” put in the Parson drily. 
“ It was at Goit Mill, if you remember, and I tried to 
prove to you that even the pauper bairns have souls and 
bodies to be seared.” 

“ An’ I said that I hed no trade wi’ souls, an’ that 
their bodies war gi’en ’em to wark wi’, just as mine an’ 
yourn war gi’en us to wark wi’. Theer’s another thing, 
an’ all; ye’re fearful fond o’ land, an’ farming, an’ sicli- 
like, as if it war godlier nor trade. Well, I met Farmer 
Haggas awhile back, going round his fields; he war 
seeing how his oats war shaping, an’ going ower what 
weight o’ hay he’d ingathered fro’ his meadows last 
month, an’ looking ower a beast or two to see if they 
wod fetch a pund more nor they war worth. Is theer 
mich to choose between us, Parson ? ” 

“ I have seen Farmer Haggas’s labourers, and I have 
seen yours,” said the Parson slowly. “ Yes, there’s a 
difference between you.” 

“An’ I could buy Plaggas up ten times ower to¬ 
morrow; so I reckon I’m th’ better o’ th’ two, if theer is 
a difference. Brass is godliness, an’ godliness is brass, 
Parson—but theer! Yonds Marshcotes bells ringing, 
an’ I reckon ye’re wasting breath where it’s least 
wanted.” 

Parson Horrocks scarcely heard this last rough 
irony. He was looking at the quiet fields, and the quiet 
hills, and he was repeating over and over, the mill- 
master’s creed of “ Brass is godliness, an’ godliness is 
brass.” The new days were dark to him; he could 
not understand this unashamed and single-minded ad¬ 
oration of money; he had known misers, and men who 


EVENSONG 


379 


were “ near ” with hard-won earnings—but never one 
like Ephraim Booth. He could have understood him 
better had he shown shamefacedness or a wish to ex¬ 
cuse himself; but he rested, even as the Parson did, 
upon principles he did not question. The Parson, in¬ 
deed, had met his match, and more than his match; he 
could meet a poacher, a labouring ne’er-do-weel, a 
weaver, or a comber, and get to the heart of him some¬ 
how ; but Ephraim Booth had no heart to be touched, 
no sympathies to be roused; he was that strangest and 
most terrible of all created things, a man with a pur¬ 
pose only, a man with no human impulses to lead him 
into casual right-doing by the way. And the Parson 
shrank from him, with a sense of personal shame; he 
shrank as a finer nature must from such as Booth of 
Goit Mill, and felt himself defeated. 

“ Yet you see the same hills that I do—you see the 
shadows on the slopes, and the sunshine in the kindly 
sky,” he murmured, more to himself than to the master 
of Goit Mill. 

“Ay,” returned the other, “ I see a good few acres o’ 
muck, an’ rocks, an’ benty grass. Well, Parson, I’m 
not a penny piece th’ better for’t. If I could fill all 
th’ dene wi’ milns, now, right up to Wynyates Hall, 
there’d be summat in’t. An’ I’ll bid ye gooid-day, for I 
reckon it’s nigh time ye got to your preaching, like.” 

The Parson scarcely noticed his rough farewell, for 
his thoughts were busy with the ills of this new factory- 
system which had for apostles such men as Ephraim 
Booth. It was useless to plead, to exhort—useless 
even to threaten, for the law was blind of both eyes 


3 So 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


toward the mill-owners, and it was possible—nay, it 
was a matter of usual occurrence—that the children 
should be cleaning the machinery while Sabbath bells 
were calling folk to prayer. Hour after hour had Royd 
and he spent at the Parsonage, talking over trade-ways 
old and new, and seeking some method by which to 
better them; nor did they guess how many others were 
doing the same wherever thinking men lived within 
touch of looms and spinning-frames. 

“ We can but wait for God’s good time, and pray, 
and thank His mercy that we have such as Stephen 
Royd to give us hope of better things,” he murmured. 
“ Yet, ’tis hard—’tis bitter hard to see the men and 
women of to-morrow in the making as Booth is making 
them.” 

He thought himself powerless to aid the children’s 
cause; yet, foiled and baffled as he felt, the reform so 
soon to come was already growing in the dark—grow¬ 
ing in the soil which Parson Horrocks and many an¬ 
other like him had prepared. If Royd were awake to 
trade iniquities, he had found his awakening at Marsh- 
cotes Parsonage; and many a word dropped by the 
way was already breaking in the seed. 

So rapt the Parson was, and so dead to all but the 
crying of the children whose sorrows had grown per¬ 
sonal to him, that he did not hear a light step on the 
slope, nor move until a slim-waisted figure crossed the 
stile and stood beside him. 

“ Why sir, the bells are calling you to evensong! ” 
came a laughing voice. “ You will never again be able 
to rebuke us for coming late to church.” 



EVENSONG 


38i 


He turned, and saw Barbara close beside him, her 
hands filled with late-flowering forget-me-nots, and her 
eyes more full of the old frolic than he had seen there 
since she had plighted troth with Bancroft of the 
Heights. In a moment the clouds lifted from him; 
Goit Mill no longer stood in the forefront of his mind, 
hiding sun and sky and green of the growing after- 
math; for Barbara had brought the grace of past years 
back to him, and had added to his retrospect the freshest 
charm of all. 

“ Babette, you’re better than my discourses; go preach 
to my weather-beaten flock,” he said, standing off from 
her and eying her with that half-merry, half-grave air 
she knew so well. 

Never had any lassie a better chance of being spoiled 
than Barbara; never was any more constantly surprised 
to find that she could bring delight to others. Of old, 
she had given no thought to herself; but lately, with 
the shame of her betrothal to Bancroft ever with her, 
she had grown full of the sense of her own short¬ 
comings; oh! how blind these folk must be in Ling 
Crag and in Marshcotes, she would tell herself, not to 
see how little was left over when all her faults were 
sifted out. It was something of this sense that came to 
her now, as she rested her troubled glance on Parson 
Horrocks. 

“ I am not going to church to-night,” she faltered. 
“ The morning service is different—but evensong! 
Parson Horrocks, I cannot bear it; it is so full of for¬ 
gotten things that I should only sob my heart out if I 
went.” 


382 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


The Parson remembered, with a joy that was unruly 
in its fierceness, the whispers that were current up and 
down the moorside touching Bancroft’s infidelities. He 
wished he had proof, clear proof, of them; he all but 
wished that his honour was less keen, for then he would 
pass gossip on to Barbara and let her accept it or leave 
it as she would—surely anything was right that would 
free her from this awful tyranny. 

“ What is it about evensong? ” went on the other, not 
noticing his abstraction. “ There’s no hour in the 
week so full, none that can call back other days so 
softly. Oh, but it’s sad, if you bring a sad heart to it! 
The gloaming coming on the south wind through the 
door—and the linnets singing as if the world were all 
pure joy, and— But, Parson Horrocks, you will be 
late, and I shall have kept you, and I would not take 
so 'big a responsibility upon myself.” She finished as 
if half in jest, but the tears were very near her eyes for 
all that. 

“ Lassie, come with me, and let God’s peace draw 
sorrow from you,” said the Parson gently. 

“ Peace ? ” she echoed. “ I cannot be true to my 
own self—how T , then, can I find any sort of peace? ” 

“ God has a clear insight, child—he knows our mo¬ 
tives as we never know them. So! And you shall take 
my arm, and I will preach a little to you, Barbara, as 
we go down to church—preach of a misguided sense 
of duty that has put you wrong with yourself and all 
this glad, round world.” 

“ It was duty—it is duty, sir—and yet I am per- 


EVENSONG 383 

plexed. Oh, sir, I shrink so from his touch! I cannot 
help it.” 

They had crossed the stile now that led to the field 
above Goit Mill, and down below them they could see 
one corner of the mill-yard—the corner where the 
house-door opened on to its paved strip of causeway. 
Bancroft of the Heights stood at the door, and with 
him was the dark-browed lass whom Royd had once 
surprised here soon after meeting Bancroft in the lane. 

Barbara stood quite still, with parted lips, and the 
Parson felt her grasp tighten on his arm. They saw 
Bancroft stoop to the girl's lips, and heard his laugh 
come smooth and empty up the field, and Barbara 
trembled so that Parson Horrocks feared for her—until 
he stole a glance at her face, and saw the deep scorn that 
mastered every other feeling. Heretofore she had had 
one crumb of comfort—she had at least thought herself 
secure of Bancroft’s love—had thought that, whatever 
hardship she endured in keeping faith with him, it was 
hardship with duty on the one hand, and a great love on 
the other, to make it worthy. And now it was clear 
that Bancroft rated her more cheaply than anyone could 
dare, she would have thought, to rate a Cunliffe. Love 
she had none to be touched; it was pride, and pride 
only, that was outraged. 

“ What, not one more?” came Bancroft’s voice 
again, as again he stooped to snatch a kiss. 

“ Nay, you share them with another,” the girl an¬ 
swered, in a deep, laughing voice. 

“ Not for long. Have I not said ”—His voice 


3 8 4 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


dropped, and neither Barbara nor Parson Horrocks 
cared to wait, now that the first moment of stupefaction 
was past. 

Not till they had reached the churchyard gate did 
Barbara break the silence; and then she turned so 
tranquil a regard upon her friend that he was startled. 

“ I am free, free! ” she cried. “ I can look on the 
field-slopes and the moor—and know them for my 
friends again.” 

Only she knew—only the Parson guessed, hearing 
the gladness in her voice—how hardly these last 
months had treated her. The insult to her pride, the 
first quick sense of outrage, had gone altogether; Ban¬ 
croft had given back her troth, and she had no longer 
to feel anything but gratitude to him. 

At the porch-door she met Stephen, just going into 
service, and he surprised such gladness in her face that 
he wondered bitterly how Bancroft still contrived to 
make her happy. Nor did the Parson’s cheery saluta¬ 
tion rouse any answering cheerfulness, for Stephen 
felt that all the world except himself was making too 
great a show of gaiety. 


CHAPTER XX 


WHAT LAWYER FAIRCHILD BROUGHT TO MARSHCOTES 

T IM O’ TAB’S was in his farmyard this evening. 

He reared most things, did Tim, that could 
walk upon four legs or fly—he kept a pig, a 
couple of cows, a handful of sheep, a few hens and a 
half-dozen ducks; and he was successful with them all, 
because he loved them all and was quick to know their 
likes and dislikes. They, too, were not slow to know a 
friend, and Tim, popular as he was in the parish, was 
nowhere more of a favourite than in his own farmyard. 
The old sow had lately farrowed a handsome litter of 
nine, and he was flattering the youngsters to the moth¬ 
er’s face just as lawyer Fairchild rode up to the gate. 

“ Hi, my man! ” he called. 

Tim looked round from the squealing additions to 
his family. 

“ Hi to ye, an’ hi again, if ’twill do ye ony sarvice,” 
he retorted, not relishing such an off-hand greeting— 
for he was on his own land now, and always felt the 
dignity of possession at such a time. 

“ Can you tell me where one Timothy Wood lives? ” 
asked the lawyer. 

Tim scratched his head. “ Timothy Wood? Theer’s 
noan hereabouts wi’ that name. Nay, ye’ve come to th’ 
385 


3 86 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


wrong quarter, for I knaw ivery man, woman, an’ child 
fro’ this to Marschotes, an’ theer’s noan o’ th’ name o’ 
Timothy Wood.” 

“ But I was told to ride up the dene here, and I 
should find him at the third farm on the right,” said 
the lawyer, with a puzzled look. 

Tim o’ Tab’s regarded the lawyer with a no less 
puzzled air. 

“ Well, they telled ye wrang, maister. What wod he 
be like, now? Happen ye’ve getten th’ name a bit 
wrang like.” 

“ Not I,” said the other testily. “ He has had a 
legacy left him, and the name is written fair in the will 
—Timothy Wood, of Benty Farm.” 

“ Now that’s queer,” cried Tim, more and more 
puzzled; “ for ye’re at th’ gate o’ Benty Farm this 
minute, an’ I’m th’ maister on’t.” 

“And what is your name, then ? ” 

“ Nay, they call me Tim o’ Tab’s, for sure; what 
else?” It was a matter for wonderment to Tim that 
anyone should be ignorant of his name. 

“ Yes, yes—but the surname? ” 

“ Surname? I niver hed a name for laking wi’ that 
I knaw on. I’ve been plain Tim o’ Tab’s iver sin’ I can 
tell owt.” 

The lawyer’s impatience was growing fast. “ Bless 
me, man, had you never a father? ” 

“ Well, I’ve been telled so,” answered Tim drily. 
“Ay, I reckon I hed a father. Most on us hev at one 
time or another, if ye come to think on’t.” 

“And was he without a name to his back? ” 


WHAT LAWYER FAIRCHILD BROUGHT 387 

A light broke over Tim’s face. “ Begow, it’s me 
ye’re seeking!” he cried. “ Now, who’d hev thowt 
it? My father war called Wood, an’ so I mun be 
Timothy Wood, I reckon. But there’s nobody like to 
leave ony brass to me as I knaw on.” 

“ The wind blows legacies where they are least ex¬ 
pected, my man, and this one is for five hundred pounds 
—from an aunt, it seems, who lived somewhere in the 
south.” 

“ Oh, ay? That’ll be my Aunt Susanna. She’s th’ 
only one o’ th’ Woods as iver war food enow to ven¬ 
ture into the Low Country. An’ she’s left me five hun¬ 
dred pund, hes she ? Well, I’m capped! for th’ last time 
I set een on her, an’ she on me, she said I war th’ 
wastril o’ th’ family, an’ a disgrace to all gooid Woods.” 

“ I congratulate you,” said the lawyer, breaking in on 
his garrulity. “ I happened to have business near, so 
called on you in passing. Will you care for me to look 
after the legacy on your behalf, or—” 

“To be sure, to be sure! I’m a likelier chap at 
rearing pigs nor looking after brass. What, then, ye’ll 
step in an’ warm your innards wi’ a drop o’ summat? ” 

The lawyer was strange to the habits of the moor- 
side, or he would have known that courtesy demanded 
his acceptance of such hospitality; as it was, he gave a 
cold refusal, resenting Tim’s plain fashion of address a 
little, and turned his horse about. 

Tim watched him down the road, and winked sa¬ 
gaciously at Flick. 

“ Flick, owd lad, we’re i’ luck, I reckon,” he said. 
“ Ay, we mun be i’ luck—though I’d liefer addle a 


3 88 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


crown by poaching nor five hundred pund by this queer 
mak o’ lawyering. Why, Squire, gooid-day! It’s a 
fair wind alius as blows ye to Benty Farm. ,, 

Lawyer and Squire had met at the gate, and had 
exchanged a greeting which, on the Squire’s part, was 
curt and nervous, as it always was when he was found 
talking with Tim o’ Tab’s or nearing the precincts of 
his farm. 

“ Good-day to you, Tim. You are watching your 
new litter, I see—and a fine company they look,” said 
the Squire, very upright of figure. 

“Ay, they’re a fine lot—they tak after th’ mother, as 
all good pigs an’ menkind should. What think ye, 
Squire? ” he broke off, shifting uneasily from one foot 
to the other. “ It’s a fearful queer happening, but I’ve 
hed a bit of a fortune left—five hundred pund, so th’ 
lawyer chap war telling me.” 

The Squire glanced quickly at him, then was silent. 
“ You will not care to work for me, then, from this 
time forward? Well, you have been staunch, Tim, 
staunch—you have deserved your good fortune, if ever 
true man did.” 

Tim o’ Tab’s came as near to anger as his easy¬ 
going temper would allow him. “ Nay, Squire, I 
didn’t think ye hed that thowt o’ me! D’ye think I’m 
wanting to turn gentleman, like? Nay, nay—while 
there’s wark in me, I’ll wark for ye; an’ if th’ brass 
is like to stand betwixt us—why, th’ brass mun go to 
some chap that’s more use for’t nor me.” 

There was perceptible relief in the Squire’s manner 
as he held out his hand impulsively to Tim. “ You 


WHAT LAWYER FAIRCHILD BROUGHT 389 


are worth a deeper regard, lad, than I have given you 
yet,” he said. 

“ Now, now, it’s all nowt when it’s fairly reckoned 
up. I’d do more for ye, Squire, if ye could tell me how. 
But there’s another matter, as I hevn’t rightly touched 
on to ye yet—I want to be wed, if ye think a wench can 
keep a secret. I’ve thowt a lot about it—a lot, I hev; 
an’ I’ve been feared to name th’ day to Tabitha Hirst, 
knowing th’ length o’ women’s tongues as weel as I do; 
but now there’ll be scant excuse, I’m thinking, for hold¬ 
ing off fro’ wedlock.” 

“ Why, to be sure, you must wed when you will,” 
said the Squire, half troubled, half smiling at Tim’s 
grave treatment of the topic. “ How should I dare to 
step in between the two of you? So, it was this news 
which brought Mr. Fairchild so far afield? I am sin¬ 
cerely glad, sincerely glad, to hear it.” 

Lawyer Fairchild, as it chanced, was wondering 
deeply at the moment what should bring Squire Cun- 
liffe to the farm; for he had heard sundry rumours 
touching Tim’s devotion to the old man, and the bond 
that seemed to link their fortunes one to the other. He 
had his own opinion on the point, as every man in 
Marshcotes had, but he would well have liked to know 
the truth. 

“ Odd that I should meet him just now—very odd,” 
he muttered, as he rode down to Hazel Mill. “ I had 
him in mind all the way over from Saxilton to-day. 
Those mortgages, now—yes, yes, they’ll suit Stephen 
Royd, if I mistake not.” 

He found Royd busy saddling his horse for the 


39 ° 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


journey down to Heathley, and they rode together as 
far as the corner where the Saxilton road turned up¬ 
ward to the right. All the way the lawyer talked of 
this and that detail of his client’s business, and it was 
not until he stopped to say farewell that he let drop 
what was the true object of his visit. 

“ I spoke to you not long since, if you remember, of 
Squire Cunliffe? He’s a friend of yours, I think you 
said? ” 

Royd nodded, then waited for the other to go on. 

“ He wishes to raise a mortgage—a trifling mort¬ 
gage on his property—and I wondered if you would 
care to take it up. Your fondness for any land that 
borders upon Marshcotes parish led me to fancy that 
you might.” 

“Squire Cunliffe?” interrupted Royd. “Do you 
mean that he of all men is in need of money? ” 

“ What would you ? The law of open house is em¬ 
barrassing to a man’s fortunes at all times, and the 
Squire is no exception.” 

“ Which part of the property is to be mortgaged, 
then?” 

“ The Hall itself. You stare? Well, well, we must 
not be indiscreet, but you can guess that the remainder 
of the estate is already plunged as deep as can be into 
difficulties.” 

Royd said nothing for a long while. He was going 
over the tale of his own fortunes, and matching it 
against the tale of the good credit he could be sure of 
in Bradford and in Halifax; and he was thinking, too, 


WHAT LAWYER FAIRCHILD BROUGHT 391 

of the stately, chivalrous gentleman who never showed 
a trace of bare pockets in his dealings with his world. 

“ You must secure these other mortgages, as well as 
the one upon the Hall itself,” he said at last, in a sharp 
decisive voice. 

“Ah, I thought you would like to have your money 
snugly in moor-property. Poor Squire Cunliffe! A 
very sad case, Mr. Royd, very sad. There should be 
every chance, I think, of securing all the mortgages; I 
know where they lie at this moment. The mortgage on 
the Hall I will secure at once—at once.” 

The lawyer bowed for the second time and went his 
way, leaving Royd to ride in moody silence down to 
Heathley. Was the whole world of Marshcotes and 
Ling Crag going the way of ruin? Booth had lost 
every penny, he himself had been beggared in more 
ways than one, and now Squire Cunliffe—the Squire, 
whom all had credited with prosperity—was one with 
his neighbours in disaster. 

The wind got up between his horse’s hoofs, and 
moaned—a shrill, wet wind that seemed born of the 
ground itself, not of the greying skies. What was the 
use of toil? What was the use of effort, struggle, 
purpose? None, said the peevish wind, and none, said 
Stephen Royd to his heart. They were beggars all on 
life’s highroad, and they were happier so—he the least 
happy of them all, perhaps, because he still had some 
little property to lose. 

Not at once had the master-weaver fallen into this 
lack-lustre-mood; he had lost Barbara, and had set his 


392 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


teeth and gone forward; he had overcome his bitterness 
touching the Heights; but this last news of the Squire 
seemed the last burden to his load. For the Squire 
was Barbara’s father, and it would be a bitter grief to 
the child if she came to learn in what sore straits he 
was. 

All the way into Heathley his sour mood had the 
better of him; nor did it leave him until he had topped 
the moor-crest once again on his home-journey. It 
was wearing late by then, and the sunset lights were 
glowing all across the green-black of the heath; savage, 
austere, friendly in its very harshness, this corner of 
the wilderness touched the old chord in Stephen Royd. 
He would fight. Ay, though ruin were red as the sun¬ 
set flames that ran from end to end of Marshcotes Moor, 
he would fight it; grim and long the fight might be, and 
ruin might have the better of it at the finish—but he 
cared nothing for that. He laughed, as he had laughed 
long months ago on the road from Ling Crag to Colne; 
and now, as then, a peewit answered him from over¬ 
head. He was bitter still—but it was the bitterness 
which struggles and prevails. And that mood held him 
till he climbed the steep of Marshcotes village, until he 
had reached home and had leisure to move up the 
moonlit dene. What came to him there, as he loi¬ 
tered by his dams and watched the moor-ripples play 
from edge to rush-fringed edge, he never knew; but 
little by little his mood changed—little by little his 
harshness mellowed—until on the sudden he felt him¬ 
self awake—awake as he had never been till now. The 
sense of fight was keen in him as ever; but it was fight 


WHAT LAWYER FAIRCHILD BROUGHT 393 

of another and a worthier temper now. What had 
Parson Horrocks said to him long since? That strug¬ 
gle for one’s own hand only could not bring peace— 
could bring, indeed, no lasting success. He had let the 
words slip by him then, for they seemed to fit ill with 
business of the mill; yet now they returned with a new 
force. 

Ruin had been the end of Ephraim Booth, disaster 
had been his own portion; the Parson had spoken a 
true word. 

“ Get thee to wedlock, lad Stephen,” he had said, 
“ for only by working for another will there come 
peace.” 

His chance of wedlock was gone, but there was an¬ 
other waiting for his efforts—the old Squire up at 
Wynyates yonder, who was carrying straight shoulders 
under a burden grievous to be borne. He, Royd, must 
buy up the mortgages, one and all of them; credit he 
had in plenty yet, and he must work, work to make 
two fortunes instead of one. Something like cheeri¬ 
ness was in the master-weaver’s face again as he real¬ 
ized how plain the issue was; something of his quarrel 
with the world seemed righted; for the first time he 
understood the peace, the abiding peace, that lies in 
selflessness. 

Resolve was only in the making yet, it was true; but 
resolve and act were one with Stephen Royd, and it was 
sure he would start forthwith upon his task. 

“ Wool! Still wool! I shall never again get back 
to honest farm-tools,” he murmured ruefully. 

Yet work had its own sweetness, he found, as the 


394 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


weeks wore on—its own sweetness, despite anxiety, 
despite the fear, which loomed larger every day, that he 
would have to pledge the Heights mortgages in order to 
keep Squire Cunliffe’s in his hands. And when a voice 
came and whispered that he could not bear to part with 
his one chance of regaining the Heights, he turned to 
work with a grim face and a kindly thought behind it 
of the man who needed help far more than he. 



BANCROFT DISMOUNTED AT THE WYNYATES COURTYARD 














BANCROFT FARES FROM WYNYATES 397 

understood how irksome—nay, how much of an out¬ 
rage—it had been to follow the plain path of duty. 
And now the sense of freedom, as it had done yester¬ 
day, overcame altogether her sense of injured pride; 
it was as if a burden, sadly over-heavy for her shoul¬ 
ders, had been lifted clean away. 

“Will you forgive me?” she repeated, seeing him 
stand there without a word. “ I had no right to cause 
you pain.” 

“ Barbara,” he cried, gripping her by the arm, 
“what ails you? You’re laughing at me, and all this 
solicitude is so much mockery.” 

She wearied of him suddenly, and grew ashamed 
that she should be prolonging such a scene. “ Mr. 
Bancroft,” she said coldly, “ I do not care to give you 
any reasons; it is enough that I cannot marry you. 
And now, you will have a glass of wine with father. 
I have told him nothing of this, thinking you would 
prefer to explain it to him.” 

“ To explain it to him? ” echoed Bancroft. “ What 
am I to explain, save that you have broken troth with 
me?” 

Each moment he sank deeper into doubt; what did 
she mean, this dainty lassie who looked so steadfastly 
away from him? Was it a jest, or had she learned 
something from the gossip of the country-side? Nor 
would she give him any further light upon the matter, 
but turned abruptly through the meadow-gate on the 
far side of the courtyard. 

Bancroft laid a hand upon his bridle, as if he were 
minded to ride off at once in a fit of spleen; then 


39» 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


glanced at the girl’s retreating figure; and last of all 
he was decided by seeing the Squire come down the 
long stone passage that led to the hall-door. 

“ Why, then, lad! ” the old man cried. “ Do you 
doubt your welcome, that you stand shiftless there? ” 

“ To be truthful, sir, I do, though a few moments 
since I thought my welcome always sure at Wyn- 
yates.” 

“ Nay, nay! Am I bewitched, or are you past your 
wits? You unwelcome here at Wynyates—’tis the 
first that I have heard of it.” 

“ Yet Barbara has told me as much just now. She 
wishes to be free again, sir.” 

Squire Cunliffe rested both hands on his cane and 
stood there, a picture of dismay and wonderment, 
framed by the dark woodwork of the doorway. “ I 
cannot credit it,” he said. 

“ Nor I, until I remember how she looked at me— 
and her voice, with the nicely-cutting scorn in it. 
Neither would she tell me my offence—” 

“Offence? There’s none,” said the Squire per¬ 
emptorily. “ A maid’s whimsies, Dick, a maid’s 
whimsies; think no more of them. Pish! I was 
man enough at your age to know what these April 
gusts should mean.” 

“ She is in earnest, sir, I think, and yet I cannot 
give her up.” 

Bancroft was in earnest, too; for the further Barbara 
receded from his hopes, the more he longed for her. It 
was well enough to play false with her, and well enough 
to set prudence in the fore-front of desires; but when 


BANCROFT FARES FROM WYNYATES 399 

he was brought face to face with her, and found cold¬ 
ness where there had once been something warmer, 
he could think only of her beauty, of that proud win¬ 
someness which appealed so strongly to his own 
rougher instincts. 

“ What reasons did Barbara give you ? ” said his 
host, after a silence. “ I am perplexed altogether, Mr. 
Bancroft. She would have spoken first of it to me, 
surely, had this been true.” 

“Nay, she seemed to be jesting, sir, when she bade 
me come to you with explanations, and yet—” 

“ Mr. Bancroft, you will find the child and ask her to 
come to me here at once. I do not choose to talk of 
jests in connection with my daughter’s hand.” 

Bancroft of the Heights had shown to little advan¬ 
tage with Barbara, but now he looked more ill-at-ease 
than ever. The Squire’s breeding had always dis¬ 
quieted him; and to-day he was conscious of a certain 
scornful ring in the old man’s voice which was new to 
him. It seemed, indeed, that his position here at Wyn- 
yates was changed entirely; yet still there was no 
reason given; and now he was bidden to go over the 
country-side seeking Barbara, when Barbara had shown 
herself so markedly wishful to avoid him. He came 
out of a moody spell of thought, and strove to recover 
his old jaunty stride as he crossed the yard and opened 
the meadow-gate through which the girl had gone. 

“ Fool that the lad is, fool! ” muttered the Squire. 
“ I should have known that the little maid could not 
bear with him for long. And yet her word is pledged, 
and she’ll not break it now; I almost wish that it were 


400 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


possible. The sadness of it! And she doing all for 
my sake, as she thinks; and I going blindly forward 
in the dark, doing this and that to ensure her welfare 
and seeing it turn to ashes. Babette, Babette! And 
you’re so like to what your mother was.” 

His eyes sought the little strip of garden that flanked 
the house-front; for it was here that Barbara’s mother 
had loved to loiter when the sun was going down be¬ 
hind the rough head of the moor above, here that she 
had planted musk and rosemary, pansies and shy Lon¬ 
don pride. Not a flower there was now but spoke of 
her; not an odour but called up some forgotten speech, 
tender or wise or playful, that had passed between them. 
And again a great cry escaped him, a bitter cry of, 
“ Babette, Babette! ” as he thought of what the child of 
all this tenderness was like to come to. 

Barbara herself was close at hand, though he did not 
guess it; for she had turned up the meadow-track and 
had come round by the path between the mistals soon 
as she saw that Bancroft of the Heights was gone. 

“ I’m here, daddy,” she cried, in answer to that low 
passionate cry of his. 

“ Ah, the picture of her! The picture! ” he mur¬ 
mured, regarding her with a far-off glance that saw the 
buried years alone. “ Just as she used to come, with 
trustful eyes and the sunlight on her hair—and she had 
pansies in her hands, blue pansies, with the fragrance 
that brings heartsease, so she said. Why, child! ” he 
broke off, passing a hand across his eyes, “ I thought— 
I fancied—■ Nay, never mind what I fancied, or you’ll 
think I age too fast.” 


BANCROFT FARES FROM WYNYATES 401 

“ I shall always think that, father—even if you 
aged a day only in a year. Dear, you must not grow 
any older—never, never! ” 

“ Barbara,” he said by and by, “ I have had Bancroft 
here, with some tale of a lover’s quarrel.” 

“ He did not tell you the cause of it, then? ” 

“ Not he—for he did not seem to know.” 

“ I think he knew too well, though it may be he did 
not guess that I had learned his secret. It is no pleasant 
thing for me to tell you, father, and I put off the 
moment—” 

“ Should’st not have done that, lassie; are we to be¬ 
gin keeping secrets one from another at this late day? ” 

Barbara turned toward the laithe and looked up at 
the dusty, cobwebbed window of the Squire’s work¬ 
room. “ What, have we no secrets ? ” she cried. 

The Squire shook his head with would-be playful¬ 
ness. “ Only the one, Babette. Tell me, child, has 
Bancroft been unfaithful ? ” 

She bent her head; and the Squire, not needing to 
ask any further question, put his arm close about her. 

“ No need to ask if you regret, child,” he said. 

“ But you, father, you? I had no choice but to break 
troth, yet—” 

“ You had no choice, that is enough,” he said. 
“ And what if I confessed—ay, for it’s true!—that I 
am wondrous glad to have my little maid again ? ” 

“ You shall keep her, dear! Indeed you shall keep 
her, for she never wished, did she, to leave old Wyn- 
yates? ” 

“ Maids always say as much, until— Well, well, 


402 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Babette! It was scarce courteous of you to send Mr. 
Bancroft to me in the fashion that you did.” 

There was demure mischief in her face. “ Perhaps 
he did not merit courtesy; besides, I could not stoop to 
accuse him, sir, of this and that.” 

Bancroft’s search for his mistress, meanwhile, had 
proved unavailing, though he had met with Parson 
Horrocks on the far side of the meadows. The Parson 
stopped on seeing him, and stood across his path. 

“ Good-day to you, Mr. Bancroft. We are well 
met,” he said. 

Bancroft glanced uneasily at him, for he misliked the 
tone, the uncompromising rebuke in the Parson’s face. 
“ It is always well met, I trust, sir, when we pass the 
time of day. Why more so than usual ? ” 

“ Because I was on my way to see you, and have 
saved myself so much good time wasted. I wondered 
if you had been up to Wynyates yet.” 

“ I have just come from there.” 

“ That is a pity. I had hoped to save Barbara the 
trouble of dismissing you.” 

“ Sir! ” cried Bancroft, “ sir, I do not understand! 
You are an older man, and your cloth—” 

“ Oh, never heed my cloth! I’ll take my stand on 
manhood, if it pleases you. You were at Goit Mill 
yestereven, I think? Ay, for I saw you there, and Bar¬ 
bara saw you.” 

The other’s face grew long. “ She saw me? Saw 
me with—with Booth’s daughter ? ” he stammered. 

“And heard a little of your talk as well. So one 


BANCROFT FARES FROM WYNYATES 403 

mistress did not content you, Mr. Bancroft? You must 
have the bonniest maid in Marshcotes, and in your 
leisure go hanging to the skirts of country wenches? 
Barbara owes you thanks for it, though, and so do I, for 
I would rather see her wed any man in the county 
than yourself.” 

Quiet as the Parson was, his voice was shaking. The 
indignity of it was coming home to him afresh; that 
this upstart, feather-headed ruffler should have dared 
to claim the touch of Barbara’s hand—that he should 
ever have been admitted among them as an equal— 
seemed an outrage. The proud moor-blood in him was 
stirred, that quick instinct of exclusiveness which rated 
all men born off the heath as foreigners; Bancroft was 
an alien, and a thin-blooded one to boot. 

“You were ever kindly toward me, Parson,” said the 
younger man with a sneer. “ Do not mince your words, 
I beg.” 

“ It is not my custom, sir—least of all to yourself. 
’Tis idle, I suppose, to ask if you mean to wed this girl 
of Booth’s?” 

Bancroft had lost all hope of Barbara now, and no 
longer cared to hide his intentions. “ You may ask,” 
he said, “ and I will answer. I mean to wed her, and 
have done so this fortnight past. It seems strange, 
does it not,” he went on jauntily, “ that I should make 
such choice? ” 

“ It seems vastly in keeping with what I should ex¬ 
pect of you—entirely in keeping, sir.” 

“ I have been wronged— I, Parson, not Barbara,” 


4 04 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


cried the other, stung by the sneer. “ When I asked for 
her hand, I understood that the Squire was what he 
seemed.” 

“ Have a care, Mr. Bancroft! I can listen patiently 
to some things, but—” 

“ Oh, I have nothing to say against him, except that 
appearances belie him. I thought him rich, and find 
him in the same difficulties as myself.” 

“ You are misinformed, sir, or you are trifling with 
an honoured name.” 

“ Nay, for my lawyer dropped a hint—no more, but 
enough to tell me what I had never once suspected.” 

“ Your lawyer is a fool, then, for his indiscretion. 
Pah, you are shallower than I thought, sir! First to 
confess so candidly that it was the fortune, not the 
woman, whom you sought; then, to accept on hearsay 
this unlikely tale.” 

“ I remember many things, Parson, which had es¬ 
caped my mind. I have been wronged, I tell you, and I 
care nothing for your honoured names. When first I 
asked for Barbara’s hand, the Squire was strange in 
manner, so I thought—asked me if I would wed his 
daughter if she were penniless, and yet did not confess 
as much in open fashion.” 

“ To which you answered that you cared not whether 
she were rich or poor ? Ay, ay, I can hear you saying 
it—can hear you saying it. Mr. Bancroft, I would I 
were a younger man—I would that a hunting-crop 
were seemly in a parson’s hands—and so good-day to 
you.” 

The Parson walked briskly up the path, without 


BANCROFT FARES FROM WYNYATES 405 


salute, without other farewell of any sort; but by and 
by he dismissed Bancroft’s memory with a shrug, realis¬ 
ing how little worthy he was of honest anger, and what 
a debt of thankfulness was due to him from Barbara’s 
friends. He was nearing Wynyates now, and his 
thoughts turned toward Squire Cunliffe; were his 
fortunes as desperate as Bancroft had given him to 
understand? He could not credit it; for was he not 
the Squire’s oldest friend, who had been in and out of 
Wynyates at all seasons, who had exchanged close 
confidences at that warm hour when gloaming deepens 
toward candle-time and draws a man’s heart out of 
him? It was not possible that disaster should have 
brooded over Wynyates, and he not caught some hint 
of it. 

Yet the Parson was not tranquil. Like Bancroft, he 
remembered little signs that he had neglected to 
interpret—signs of growing thriftiness in small matters, 
of growing anxiety upon Squire Cunliffe’s part. He 
recalled how often he had seen the Squire’s glance fixed 
on Barbara with a wistfulness he had not been able to 
interpret. Was it possible that he had seen ruin draw 
so near that for the maid’s own sake he had been eager 
to provide for her ? 

“ We have been blind, blind! ” he cried, coming to a 
sudden halt. “Why did not Royd guess it? Why 
did I not see how desperate a motive he must have 
had to accept young Bancroft as a suitor? Stephen 
would always wait, wait; I warned him of it—warned 
him, too, against that pride he had in seeming poor to 
the Squire and all his neighbours.” 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


406 

He went forward again slowly; and then on the 
sudden he lifted his head, and saw that the Squire 
himself, not a score yards away, was watching him 
with a quiet smile. The sight reassured him; what 
were a few wind-words of Bancroft’s, a few remem¬ 
bered nothings, when measured by this tranquil air 
with which his friend regarded him ? 

“ I never saw you moody, Parson—never till to-day 
in all the years I’ve known you! ” cried the Squire. 

“ Maybe, maybe; for you never saw me deep in 
doubt about—well, Cunliffe, about your own welfare. 
You have looked harassed now and then of late, and 
I was wondering if land were proving a cruel step¬ 
mother to you, as it has done to many another on the 
moorside.” 

The Squire took out his snuff-box, and tapped it 
gently as he offered it to his friend. “ Land should 
not be cruel to us, Cunliffes—we have loved it over¬ 
well,” he said. “ What is amiss with you, Parson, to 
let such fancies bear you company ? ” 

“Nay, they are gone! I feared, because your 
welfare, and Barbara’s, is dearer to me than my own. 
Where is the maid? I promised to come up and see 
how well her brood of speckled chickens thrives; she 
had the eggs from me, and I feel the full weight of 
responsibility, Squire.” 

Again the Squire smiled, with less constraint. “ You 
will find her in the garden,” he said—“ and she lias 
begun to sing again, for a reason that she’ll tell you, 
haply, if you ask for it.” 

“ Her spring has come, maybe—and, like the thros- 


BANCROFT FARES FROM WYNYATES 407 


ties, she must voice it. Well, well, we can have our 
spring but once, Squire; pray God that little Barbara's 
may not be marred.” 

“ Pray God it may not,” echoed the other, with some¬ 
thing of his old disquiet. 

It would have brought a bitter smile to the face of 
Stephen Royd could he have heard the reason of Bar¬ 
bara’s happiness; for this very morning he had been 
compelled to choose between two alternatives, and had 
raised money from his bankers on the Heights mort¬ 
gages. Wynyates was safe as yet, but whether he 
would be able to hold fast to that mortgage depended 
altogether on the issue of the next few weeks. 


CHAPTER XXII 


A SACRIFICE 

L AWYER FAIRCHILD, as he sat in the office 
that topped off the narrow, ill-paved main street 
of Saxilton, was turning over some papers and 
smoothing his clean-shaven chin. He looked out as a 
horseman clattered up to his door, dismounted, and 
came in with a brisk, decisive step. 

“ Stephen Royd—ay, he knows his own mind always, 
and he walks like it,” he murmured. “ Good-day to 
you, sir, good-day! The morning is crisp for the time 
of year, eh ? Crisp and clear, with more sunshine than 
we’ve had of late.” 

“ More sunshine than I care to see,” said Royd. “ I 
had liefer have grey skies and murk, Mr. Fairchild— 
they suit my temper better, and always did.” 

“ Now, this will not do! This will not do at all. 
Had I your advantages, Mr. Royd—” 

“ Yes, had you my advantages, you would be aston¬ 
ished,” put in the other drily. “ I called to ask about 
the mortgages we spoke of a fortnight since,” he added 
presently. 

“ I have secured the one upon the Hall itself, as I 
promised, and there is even less difficulty about the 
others than I anticipated. In fact, the present holders 
408 


A SACRIFICE 


409 


seem anxious to dispose of them, as there is a feeling" 
that the property is fast depreciating.” 

“ And the interest ? Do you fancy Squire Cunliffe 
contrives to pay it regularly ? ” 

“ Until now he has done—but whether it will be 
forthcoming in the future, I cannot say.” 

Royd tapped the table impatiently. “ There’s danger 
of foreclosure, then?” he asked abruptly. “That is 
bad hearing, Mr. Fairchild, for I cannot secure the 
other mortgages at present.” 

The lawyer glanced at him, amazed. “ You, Mr. 
Royd? You, too, begin to talk of poverty?” 

“ Since last seeing you, yes. Booth of Goit Mill is 
bankrupt—Earnshaw of Bradford is bankrupt—and 
to-day two other creditors of mine have followed suit.” 

“ Yet your mill is not standing, and the demand for 
cloth has rarely been brisker. Surely—” 

“ For all that, I have little but debts to show; with 
hard work I may just contrive to escape disaster—but 
I’ve no capital to advance on mortgages.” 

“ Humph! I am sorry to hear it, on your own ac¬ 
count and on the Squire’s. If anything should happen 
.—if he should find himself unable to pay the interest— 
he would never get over the blow of losing the old 
property.” 

“ He need not lose the Hall, at any rate. I must 
scrape together enough to purchase that.” 

“ Ah, but you know the Squire—I know him, too, 
though better by reputation than in person. He is 
proud, sir, proud to his finger-tips, as all you Ling Crag 
folk are.” 


410 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ He is old, too, and the world has bowed his 
shoulders,” murmured Royd. “ You are right, Mr. 
Fairchild. He must not be put to any shame, any 
trouble—” 

“ Well, now, cannot we avoid it ? Surely there’s a 
way of some kind to be found.” 

“ Yes,” said Royd slowly, “ there is a way—there is 
just one way and only one.” 

Lawyer Fairchild, cool man of the world as he was, 
did not guess the struggle that was going on in his 
client’s mind, nor know that during the few moments’ 
silence Royd had made the greatest sacrifice which was 
left to him to make. The mill-master no longer saw 
the table, with its littered sheets of parchment and the 
rows of deed-boxes above it; he was looking at a long 
low house, from out whose every window some memory 
seeemed to beckon him; to give up the Heights was to 
give up the solitary hope that still gave purpose and a 
show of warmth to labour; the Squire could have asked 
no greater deed of abnegation in return for past kind¬ 
nesses shown to this orphaned lad of Jasper Royd’s. 

“Well, Mr. Royd? What think you?” said the 
lawyer, as still his client kept silence. 

Royd looked up, with a sudden air of determination. 
“Shall I find you here this afternoon?” he asked. 
“ Good; I must ride on at once to Bradford.” 

The lawyer sat playing with his quill after Royd had 
left him. “ Flard and soft—knotty as a bit of oak, yet 
soft beneath it all—they’re a queer race, these folk of 
Marshcotes and Ling Crag,” he muttered. “ Now, 
what has Stephen Royd in mind? For a man on the 


A SACRIFICE 


411 

edge of bankruptcy to go buying mortgages seems ab¬ 
surd—but then he’s wilful, and always was. Success¬ 
ful, too—he’ll find a way out, if I mistake not—a way 
out for the Squire and for himself.” 

Royd was at least finding a way out for the Squire, 
as was plain when, later in the day, he drew rein again 
at Lawyer Fairchild’s door. “ I have borrowed from 
my bankers on the Heights mortgage,” he said. 

“ On the Heights mortgage ? ” cried the lawyer, lift¬ 
ing his eyebrows. “ You will pardon me, Mr. Royd, 
but I should not have thought you willing to put that in 
danger.” 

“I am not willing,” Royd answered grimly; “but 
what other alternative is left me? I might borrow on 
the security of my goods—I had thought of doing so, 
indeed—but these other losses have crippled me too 
far.” 

“ Then frankly, sir—as lawyer with client—what 
are your plans for the future? I was anxious that you 
should take up these Wynyates mortgages, but not at 
such grave risk to yourself. Suppose more sums go 
the way of those already lost ? ” 

“ I must take the chance, that is all. If we wait, 
there is every likelihood that the Squire will find the 
mortgages foreclosed. Do you not see, there must be 
no delay ? ” 

“I see that two of you may very well become bank¬ 
rupt, instead of one. However, Mr. Royd, I have no 
right to urge you further; you wish me to purchase? ” 

“ I do, and at once. You will advise me directly you 
have word of them ? ” 


412 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


Lawyer Fairchild saw him to the door. “ What will 
the end of Royd be? ” he muttered, as he watched the 
big roan horse go down the street. “ He’s the sort of 
man who hacks and hews his way through life—and 
they succeed, yes, they succeed, until life turns round 
on them and says, ‘ No further.’—Bless me,” he broke 
off, smoothing his chin with one plump hand, “ bless 
me, am I to begin moralising at this end of a busy day? 
Tut, tut; it is not to be thought of. Yet Royd? I 
find him much on my mind nowadays; he’s his father’s 
son, and one remembers many a buried story of old 
Jasper.” 

Royd himself had turned over Millgate Bridge by 
this time, and was breasting the sandy road that led 
upward to the moor. He felt no exaltation, scarcely a 
touch of pleasure, in the thought that he had saved 
Squire Cunliffe from disaster; for renunciation, after 
twenty years of fighting for his own hand, does not 
come in gentle guise to any man. Nay, it was alto¬ 
gether bitter, he told himself; for unless the tide turned 
speedily, the Heights mortgages would pass into an¬ 
other’s hands. 

“ I had rather see it burned before my eyes— 
burned,” he cried, with a sudden impulse of rebellion, 
as he gained the summit of the farther hill and saw the 
Ling Crag moorside stretch wide toward the sky-line. 

So intent he was upon the scene that he did not hear 
a second horse come up behind him at the trot, until 
a hearty voice called out to him to halt. 

“ Now, lad, your face has thunder in it. What is 


A SACRIFICE 


4 i 3 


amiss? ” cried Parson Horrocks, as Royd turned in the 
saddle. “ There, now, you’ll tell me you were thinking 
of business and the price of yarn. See you, Stephen, 
I care not what the price of yarn is so long as I can see 
the sunlight washing yonder slopes, and hear the lav- 
‘ rock overhead. Business, forsooth! I begin to won¬ 
der if I ever taught thee thankfulness.” 

“ Maybe I was not thinking of business, sir, at all,” 
laughed Royd. “ Do you see the spur of moor across 
there that shelters Wynyates ? ” 

“ Ay, and I’ve news for you from Wynyates—have 
had these two days past, but I could never find you at 
the mill. Say, Stephen, where have you been of late, 
that none of your friends have been able to set eyes on 
you ? ” 

“ I have barely slept at the mill for the past few days, 
what with Halifax market, and business up and down 
the country-side. Times grow more difficult each day, 
Parson.” 

“ Ay, and touching that, what of our friend the 
Squire? I heard some disquieting rumours not long 
ago from Bancroft of the Heights, but would not credit 
them. You know nothing, Stephen, I take it? ” 

Royd leaned forward, on pretence of adjusting his 
horse’s bit. “ I am not in the Squire’s confidence so 
much as you are, sir—though more, I should have 
thought, than Mr. Bancroft is.” 

“ Ah, well, there’s naught but idle talk in it, I war¬ 
rant, for Bancroft was ever one to listen to tattle. The 
Squire does not give us that impression, eh? I could 


4 H 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


have laughed when last I saw him, at the thought that 
he could carry threadbare fortunes under such an air 
as his.” 

“ If his fortunes are threadbare, sir, he carries them 
with a straight back.” 

“ Ay, and I am glad to have his own word for it that 
he lacks nothing. Do you know, Stephen, I have strange 
thoughts touching Squire Cunliffe. What if he is 
searching for no Philosopher’s Stone at all ? What if 
there’s some invention working in that nimble brain of 
his? He labours so lovingly, so ungrudgingly, there 
must be something worthy underneath it all. 

Royd glanced up. “ I had never suspected him of 
that,” he cried, in sheer surprise. “ Why, sir, he hates 
the very name of trade; is it likely he would work to 
further it ? ” 

“ I cannot tell. Men’s minds are stranger than we 
give them credit for, and he may well have an over¬ 
mastering passion of the kind—a passion for creating, 
apart from the use to which his machinery is to be put. 
Mark my words, lad, we shall see some great thing 
issue from that room above the laithe, and I should not 
like to think that my old friend was crippled in any way 
by anxiety or lack of money.” 

“ He need not be crippled, sir,” Royd answered, with 
a straight glance at the Parson and a sudden lifting of 
his moodiness. His sacrifice seemed worthier now, as 
if one half its bitterness had been removed by this sug¬ 
gestion of the Parson’s. 

“ How mean you, lad ? A moment since you spoke 
as if you knew nothing of_his affairs, and now—” 


A SACRIFICE 


4i5 


“ Why, he shows no signs of poverty—did you not 
say as much? And as for Bancroft’s gossip, he is 
windy as a night of March.” 

“ He had a reason, moreover, for belittling the 
Squire’s fortunes. What think ye, Stephen, this ruf¬ 
fling owner of the Heights gave me not long since as 
excuse ?— Ah, but your pardon; you have not heard 
the news yet.” 

“ I have heard no news, sir, except of tops and noils 
and other greasy items of my trade.” 

“ Well, then, I shall play with thee a little, for show¬ 
ing so gloomy a face as thou didst just now. What if 
Bancroft of the Heights were to be wedded within the 
month? ” 

Royd’s horse, not liking his quick jerk at the reins, 
sprang forward and all but unseated him. “ Steady, 
fool! steady,” he growled, pulling up at the top of the 
long rise. 

The Parson followed at a pace more leisurely, a quiet 
gleam of humour in his face. “ Well? No answer to 
my question, lad ? ” he asked. 

“ I wish little Barbara well at all times—but—I had 
not looked for the marriage to be made so soon. Neither 
did I fancy you would accept it with such gaiety, sir, if 
the truth must out.” 

“ Stephen, I’ll not play with you again—you catch 
fire over-easily. Bancroft is to be wedded within the 
month, but not to Barbara.” 

“ I’m stupid a little, Parson, or your jests are not as 
plain as might be.” 

“ Nothing plainer,” broke in the other cheerily. 


416 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Mr. Bancroft credited the rumour he had heard touch¬ 
ing the Squire’s poverty, and he was in pressing need of 
money. Beggars cannot be choosers, as he admitted 
to me with unblushing frankness, so he must needs pay 
court to Ephraim Booth’s daughter.” 

Royd said not a word until they reached the foot of 
Marshcotes Street. It was strange to see the light, as 
of a dawn, creep over the familiar fields—strange to 
realise, little by little, that Barbara’s happiness was not 
to be thrown as a plaything to Bancroft of the Heights. 
Of himself he had as yet no thought at all; it was the 
sense of the child’s escape that gave a new warmth to 
sky and earth—a warmth that was so reflected in his 
face just now as to make the Parson smile. 

‘‘There, Stephen! That is likelier. You used to 
wear that sort of look when you were a lad, before the 
hardness crusted you. I was minded to give Bancroft 
a horse-whipping the other day, but soberer counsel told 
me that we owe him gratitude. He’s likely, too, to 
repent his bargain, if all I hear be true.” 

“ Yes, it is true. Booth of Goit Mill is bankrupt, as 
I know by the loss of three thousand pounds. He’ll 
not wed the daughter now^T take it.” 

“ Not he. Now, Stephen, we’re at the hilltop, and 
you must come and sup with me. I have a hundred 
things to talk of.” 

“ I’m with you, Parson—and we must drink to Bar¬ 
bara’s freedom.” 

“ But where’s your talk of ruin, lad ? ” asked the 
Parson, with a shrewd glance. 

Royd’s face grew grave again, as he followed his 


A SACRIFICE 


4 i 7 


host in silence up the lane. For ruin was one of two 
alternatives which by and fyy he must meet—the 
likelier of two alternatives, indeed—and not himself 
only, but Squire Cunliffe and Barbara, too, would be 
dragged down by his own failure. 

“So Booth has lost everything? ” said the Parson 
musingly. “ Well, he knotted the whip for his own 
back, as I foretold. Lad, but he’ll have leisure now 
to hear the crying of the children! Leisure to hear it 
—and grace to repent, maybe, if I can help him to it.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE RUFFLER^S FARE-YE-WELL 

B ANCROFT of the Heights had declined all re¬ 
sponsibility with regard to Booth’s daughter, 
just as he had broken faith with Barbara. The 
mill-owner had stormed in vain, had threatened in vain; 
threats and rough speech alike had broken harmlessly 
against the younger man’s smooth carelessness. Nor 
would Bancroft leave his house as yet; so long as he 
could scrape together enough to pay the interest on the 
mortgages, and enough to squander in roadside tav¬ 
erns, he meant to keep his ground against all adverse 
comment of his neighbours. Yet Stephen Royd knew 
—what many guessed—that this ruffling owner of the 
Heights could not hold up his head for long; and he 
wondered gravely whether he or another would reap the 
advantage when the mortgages fell in. 

For trade was going from bad to worse, so far as the 
owner of Hazel Mill was concerned. Bad debts had 
multiplied, speculations had miscarried; work as he 
would, his capital was dwindling perilously near to the 
point when he would have to pledge the Wynyates 
mortgages or abandon trade for good and all. He 
kept aloof from Wynyates nowadays more carefully 
than ever; for he was conscious of a certain embarrass¬ 
ment—a sense of shame almost—in meeting Squire 
Cunliffe now that he had learned the secret of his 
418 


THE RUFFLER’S FARE-YE-WELL 419 

poverty. He shrank from meeting Barbara, too, under 
the changed conditions; and when she thought his 
greeting cold, if they chanced to meet on highroad or 
on moor, he was telling himself that she would shrink 
from speaking with him until her pride was healed. 

The shadow of trade depression, too, lay over all the 
moorside, and Tim o’ Tab’s was the one light-hearted 
man among them, so it seemed. Tim had reasons, 
however, over and above the gaiety which carried him 
at most times on the topmost wave of life; for Tabitha 
Hirst had promised to go to kirk with him as soon as 
October was well through. 

“ I’d liefer not bide so long, an’ that’s truth,” said 
Tim, upon a day of September; “but saying ye’ve no 
reasons willun’t alter matters, I reckon.” 

“ Lasses niver need reasons; I thowt ye knew as mich 
as that, Tim. There’s too mich to be done, an’ all, i’ th’ 
house here an’ about, to let me wed afore next month.” 

“ Well, I’ll hev so mich more liberty, an’ that’s 
summat. What dost think I war saying to myseln last 
neet, Tabitha, as I looked across th’ benty fields, an’ 
watched th’ hares go crop-cropping i’ th’ moonleet ? ” 

“ Nay, some mak o’ fooilishness—that ye’d liefer hev 
a hare i’ th’ field, happen, nor a wife i’ th’ house-place. 
War that it, Tim? ” 

“ Mebbe. I’m noan so fain to be wed after all, 
Tabitha, though I hev getten a bit o’ brass now to lay 
by agen th’ day they land me into gaol for poaching.” 

Tabitha leaned over the low wall that flanked her 
father’s bit of garden—the wall up which the currant- 
bushes grew giving their bruised sweetness to the 


420 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


evening wind. “ We’ll cry off a bad bargain, then,” 
she murmured. “ Ye’ve getten your nets an’ snares, 
an’ I’ve getten likelier wark nor looking after ye; an’ 
I’m thankful we’ve fund it out i’ time, Tim.” 

“ Ay, it’s as weel,” he said, and took her to him. 

And both laughed then, softly, while the breeze came 
pit-a-pat and honey-laden from the upland heather and 
sported round them as if glad to find kindred. spirits 
here at play. 

So well did Tim urge his suit that Royd, striding 
down Hazel Dene an houf or so thereafter, was met, 
as he had been upon a night of the past summer, by 
the lilt of a poaching-song— 

“ For a hare is fond of a parsley-sprig, 

As a mare is fond of corn,” 

the blithe voice came. 

“ Tim, you rogue, the spring is over and done with,” 
cried Royd, as he stopped for a moment by the stream- 
side and watched the other put his spoil away. “ How 
dare you sing such songs ? ” 

“ Nay, th’ spring is nobbut just beginning, maister 
—for ye an’ me.” 

“ That is a dark saying; we are not all of us poach¬ 
ers, Tim, nor farmers—” 

“ Nor bahn to be wed. Well, I’m bahn to be wed for 
one, an’ they say there’s another like to follow suit 
afore so varry long. Bless ye, Maister Royd, I’d liefer 
see ye go to kirk nor go myseln, though Tabitha be th’ 
bonniest wench i’ Ling Crag, saving one.” 

“ Your thoughts run in a softish groove just now,” 


THE RUFFLER’S FARE-YE-WELL 


421 


said Royd, with an unquiet laugh. “ It’s well to be a 
man of fortune, Tim, with no anxieties beyond the 
ailments of your cattle or the price of combing.” 

“ Eh, but it’s fair a pity to hearken to ye, maister! 
I met ye here i’ tlT spring, an’ ye war blithe as could 
be—ay, I could a’most see ye tickling trout again, as 
I war doing not long sin’—as ye used to do yourseln 
as a lad. An’ now ye’re as grave as can be, wi’ niver 
a thowt for th’ brighter side o’ life.” 

“ Times alter, Tim, as you’ll find one day, perhaps. 
But there! I felt young again, when I heard your song 
come up the Dene. Could I hit a sitting hare now, 
think ye ? ” 

“ You could aim true, maister, if ye tried higher up 
at Wynyates yonder,” Tim answered, with sly mean¬ 
ing. “What, mun ye go? Well, gooid-neet to ye, 
gooid-neet. Ye’ll come to my wedding, like, Maister 
Royd?” 

“ If all’s well. Good-night to you, Tim, and a soberer 
tongue.” 

Royd had scarcely turned toward his mill when Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights came down the field-path. 

“ Why, Mr. Royd, by all that’s wonderful! ” he cried 
unsoberly. “ I walk to-night, you see, instead of rid¬ 
ing, from the Bull at Marshcotes.” 

“ One rarely finds you off the bridle-tracks,” the 
other answered. It was the first time they had met 
since Barbara’s dismissal of her lover, and Stephen 
marvelled to find that he felt so little hardship in the 
meeting; nay, his contempt was such as to rob him of 
any wish except to be courteous. 


422 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“Do you guess the reason? No? Well, I have 
played my last card, Mr. Royd, if it will gratify you to 
know it. My last card! Horses sold—house mort¬ 
gaged up to the hilt—even the furniture will have to go. 
Regret it? Not I. If I can ride, I ride; if I cannot, 
I walk, and it is never far to the next tavern.” 

“ It would seem not to be. Well, Mr. Bancroft, you 
have my sympathy.” 

“ Not at all, sir,” disclaimed the other airily. “ Not 
at all, sir! I play a ruffler’s game, and I play it to the 
end; and now I must take to my travels, and see what 
certain friends in Lancashire will do for me. It’s very 
odd,” he went on, with a confidence induced by much 
old wine, “ but I cannot guess who holds the mort¬ 
gages. The interest is long over-due, and yet there’s 
no pressure put on me as yet.” 

“ There may be by and by,” Royd put in drily. 

“ Nay, for I’ve thrown it all up, and the mortgages 
will fall in. Will you come farther up the road with 
me, Mr. Royd, and drink a last bottle with me at the 
old house —your house, as it once was? Come, we’ve 
been enemies, but what of that? Bankruptcy should 
cover all such quarrels.” 

Jaunty, careless, unabashed as ever, the man roused 
a feeling near akin to admiration in Stephen Royd; 
indeed, he had never shown to such advantage as now 
—now, when all was over with his fortune and he 
showed himself ready to meet the future as he had 
met the past. Something—a whim it may be, or a 
sudden instinct of perversity—moved Royd to accept 
the other’s offer. After the dull round of the past 


THE RUFFLER’S FARE-YE-WELL 423 

months, there would be a spice of frolic, after his 
father’s own heart, in going up to the Heights to drink 
farewell to the man whose mortgages he held. But the 
impulse passed, and he held out his hand. 

“ It is over-late, Mr. Bancroft, but you will take the 
will for the deed, I know,” he said. “ Enmity? There’s 
none between us, or I should not be wishing you good- 
luck in Lancashire.” 

Bancroft swayed a little as he grasped Royd’s hand. 
“ Fare-ye-well, then, if you will not come. Shall I ask 
pardon for making merry in your house so long ? ” 

With a boisterous laugh he turned and went up the 
fields, with light, unsteady steps; and that was the last 
Royd ever saw of him. Like a will-o’-the-wisp he had 
moved about Marshcotes parish; like a will-o’-the-wisp 
he disappeared to-night up the steep slope and over the 
moonlit hill-crest. 

Very still Royd stood at the corner of the path. The 
moment for which he had striven, for which he had 
hoped and watched, was here at last. The Heights 
was free of those who had supplanted him. He had 
looked for a supreme moment of delight; he had fore¬ 
seen a ride to Wynyates, to tell Barbara the tidings; 
yet the issue had been moulded by a stronger Hand, 
and all his house of dreams was scattered down the 
wind. 

The mortgage would fall in, and he had scarce 
enough with which to hold fast to the Wynyates deeds. 
Nay, if his last venture proved to have miscarried, he 
would be in Bancroft’s case, and the old house would 
pass to aliens once again. A month ago the old Ishmael 


424 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


would have leaped out; he would have mocked and 
railed at destiny and gone like a storm-wind down the 
dene; but to-night he crushed the impulse. 

“ What must be, must,” he said, with grim resigna¬ 
tion; “ and men are fools to lay any plans for a score 
of years ahead.” 

If it had been hard at sixteen to be beggared of 
home and fortune, hard to begin the uphill climb, the 
effort needed in these latter days was greater than any 
but himself could know. The glow of boyhood, the 
fine, careless flow of spirits, the uncertainty and ad¬ 
venturousness of everything, had carried him up the 
first difficult rungs of the ladder; but now he had to 
set foot again upon the bottom rung, to retrace the 
well-known difficulties and tedious steps of the first 
enterprise. Week after week went by, after this last 
meeting with Bancroft of the Heights; and still his 
credit wavered, doubtful to which side of the balance 
it would turn. He no longer spent any of his evenings 
in the little room beside the mill; but Tim o’ Tab’s 
could have told of many a night-meeting on the moors. 

“ He walks as if Judgment war behind him,” Tim 
would mutter at such times, “ an’ I can see he’s think¬ 
ing, thinking; an’ sometimes I wonder if Stephen Royd 
will hod his head up i’ spite of all, or whether he 
willun’t. Ony road, he frames like a stiff un, an’ he’ll 
win through, if ony wishing o’ mine can help him to’t.” 

Even the Parson saw little of Stephen nowadays. 
Royd held his peace, and sought the sympathy of no 
man; and if folk thought him once again an Ishmael, 
he did not undeceive them, nor say how sacrifice for 


THE RUFFLER’S FARE-YE-WELL 


425 


old Squire Cunliffe’s sake was beginning little by little 
to make his burdens lighter. 

Yet for all that, it was bitter hard. He watched the 
farm-folk at their tasks, and envied them; he heard the 
hunting-horn go echoing up the farther reaches of the 
moor, and the blood ran merry in his veins for one 
forgetful moment; and the weeks wore on to months, 
and trade showed little movement yet to one side or 
the other. 

It was in the very midmost of the struggle that he 
met Barbara at the head of Water Lane. A crisp 
October had brought the bracken on the moors to its 
full glory, and two stalwart fellows were plying scythe 
and fork, to win home fodder to mistal or to stable. 
Barbara, as she came up the lane, had stopped for a 
moment to watch the golden mist that overhung the 
labourers—a mist so fine and so threaded by the yellow 
autumn sunlight that it seemed scarce palpable. With 
each load tossed on to the growing heap, the dust grew 
thicker, yellower, until the men’s brown faces shone 
with a softened light that gave new dignity to their 
serious, square faces and brawny arms. 

So absorbed was Barbara in watching the scene that 
she did not hear Stephen until he had come close beside 
her and had lifted his hat to her in greeting. Her face 
flushed for a moment, then grew white again as she 
held out her hand. 

“ You are going to Marshcotes? ” she asked. 

“ Yes, and you? ” 

“ i 9 too, am going that way, to see if Parson Hor- 
rocks wants any of my summer’s honey. Perhaps you, 


426 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


too, would like a jar, Stephen, if mill-masters eat any¬ 
thing so trivial/’ she added, with one of those sudden 
glimpses of frolic which still showed themselves amid 
her late-found gravity. 

“ I should like as many jars as you will give me. 
Why, it will be luxury, Barbara, to have honey on 
my breakfast-table.” 

“ They say you starve yourself, Stephen,” she said, 
after a pause, “ and I begin to fear it true when I see 
how out of health you look.” 

“ They say all manner of follies in this parish of ours, 
Babette—at Wynyates, for instance, they say I forget 
old friends because I do not visit them.” 

“ They do, indeed.” She drew a little nearer to him 
as they walked. “ Is it quite fair, quite generous, to let 
us stand altogether out of your life? It was the same 
before the summer came, and now again you have fallen 
into the unkind habit.” 

“ Ay, but I’ve been busier than you know of. Guess 
where my thoughts were, child, when I met you on the 
moor just now?” 

“ Of the sunlight and the wind, I hope.” 

“ Of tallow—just tallow.” 

“Do you trade in everything?” she laughed. “I 
could never understand what was meant by business, 
Stephen. First, it is wool you deal in; then something 
different altogether.” 

He was looking at her, half laughing and half with 
serious meaning. “ That is speculation, Babs—we 
stand or fall by it, the most of us. Suppose, now, I 
had been advised from Russia that the price of tallow 


THE RUFFLER’S FARE-YE-WELL 427 

had gone down, while here it showed a tendency to 
rise ? What should I do, think you ? ” 

“ Being prudent, you would buy, I fancy.” 

“ That is just what I told my agent over there to do, 
not long ago; and tallow did not rise in price, Babette; 
it fell instead.” 

“You are making me quite wise!” she cried. 
“Surely I am favoured, Stephen, this morning?” 

“ I’m talkative, maybe; it seems so long since you 
and I had breakfast together at old Wyecollar. So 
tallow fell in price, and I was left with a few hundred 
barrels of it on my hands; and now I want the money.” 
“ Cannot you sell, then, at a loss ? ” 

“ I shall have to do, unless the market strengthen 
quickly; and that will mean—what will it mean, child? ” 
“ Oh, that you’ll be poorer by a little, that is all. 
Why sound so grave about it, Stephen ? ” 

“ Only because it will mean the difference between 
bankruptcy and a narrow escape from it—the difference 
between a chance of fortune, Babs, and total loss of it 
—the difference between—” 

He stopped, and she looked up at him, startled by 
the sudden meaning in his voice. There was no need 
to finish the speech that had fallen so unexpectedly; 
no need to seek interpretation of the glance he gave 
the Heights, which looked down upon them from its 
garden-trees above; and Barbara, for all her grave 
disquietude, could not help smiling at the thought 
that no likelier a matter than the price of tallow had 
loosened Stephen’s self-restraint. 

“ You—you shall have the honey by and by,” she 


428 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


murmured; “ it may stand between yourself and famine 
—who knows?—before the month is out.” 

“ Don’t jest, child! ” he said abruptly. “ Before the 
week is out I shall know all, and there’s much hangs 
on the issue.” 

“ Then perhaps—if we are not forgotten quite—you 
will ride up and tell father and myself how you have 
prospered. Father says little, Stephen, but he feels 
your lack of—shall I call it courtesy? ” 

“ Call it prudence, Babs, and be sure I’ve done with 
it so far as Wynyates is concerned.” 

She held her hand out to him with shy frankness as 
they reached the Parsonage gate. “ Good-bye,” she 
said—“ and the best of fortune, Stephen.” 

Royd walked soberly down the flagged way that led 
to the Bull tavern; he had not seen Barbara for so long, 
as he had said—nor had he guessed of late how closely, 
how persistently, the freshness of her charm, as of a 
moorland breeze, had been with him through all the 
months when she had seemed remote from any hope he 
once had felt of winning her. 

The customer he sought had not yet reached the 
Bull, but he chanced on a sorry picture in the bar—a 
rough-set man, unkempt and heavy-eyed, who sat with 
a pewter mug beside him and stared into the glowing 
peats. 

“ Gone, gone! An’ I’d slaved for’t! An’ now 
there’s nowt. Folk willun’t lend—men I could hev 
bought up three times ower not long sin’—they willun’t 
lend me a crown-piece. I’ve lost my brass—an’ theer’s 
nowt left to live for—an’ I dursn’t die.” 


THE RUFFLER’S FARE-YE-WELL 429 

Fie lifted a haggard face, as Royd halted on the 
threshold and turned as if to leave. 

Oh, it’s ye, Royd o’ Hazel Miln?” he snarled. 
“ Well, I’ve kept ye out o’ a bit o’ brass, an’ that’s 
summat. An’ now I’ve nowt to do, save drink myseln 
into forgetting. D’ye see ’em yonder? D’ye see ’em? ” 
he broke off, with a sudden fit of shivering, as he 
pointed to the corner of the room. 

“ I see nothing,” Royd answered, “ except the fire¬ 
light on the cupboard door.” 

‘‘But I do! Little childer—dead an’ buried, some 
on ’em, up on th’ lonely moor—an’ some are wick as 
scoprels, wi’ hands an’ feet all working, working.— 
Royd! Quieten’ ’em, quieten’ ’em! Ye niver did ’em 
harm; they’ll hark to ye. Feather! Jonas Feather! 
Willun’t ye come? More drink, lad, more drink! I 
mun hev more drink to drown these little uns ’at want 
to kill me.” 

His head dropped heavily between his hands, and 
Royd, seeing no chance of giving help, turned slowly 
and left him there; and he shuddered to see retribution 
overtake any man in such a guise. His thoughts were 
quickly turned into another channel, however, and one 
more pleasant. 

“ Ah, you’re here, Mr. Royd! I have good news for 
you,” cried a little, bright-faced man who all but ran 
against him in the passage. 

Royd recognised his agent, who had come up by 
coach from London; and in spite of himself, his voice 
trembled. “Well? We have had no newspaper up 
here as yet, and I know nothing of the market.” 


43 ° 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ It has risen at last. It will rise further. Wait, sir, 
wait—say, a week—and you secure a handsome profit.” 

“ Ah! ” murmured the other, with a long sigh of 
relief. “ Feather, lay covers for two, and see that the 
wine is good.” 

The landlord stopped in his hurried progress down 
the passage. It was unusual for Stephen Royd to give 
such hospitable orders. 

“ Trade’s mending, sir, I take it? ” said he. 

“ Mending, Jonas. Be speedy with the dinner, for 
my friend here will be cold after his long journey.” 

Barbara had found the Parson, meanwhile, among 
his graves, and had passed a light arm through his. 
“ Do I bring fair weather with me, sir ? ” she asked. 

“ Always, I think—and, see, there’s a Michaelmas 
daisy opened its round eyes to look at you, and the lad’s- 
love still keeps its green.” He stooped and gathered 
her a sprig of southernwood, and plucked the flower and 
handed both to her with his stateliest bow. 

“ You remember all my little likes,” smiled Barbara, 
“ for southernwood, I think, is dearer to me than any 
green thing growing.” 

She rubbed the kindly herb between her fingers, and 
Parson Horrocks, watching her, smiled at the old char¬ 
acteristic action. 

“ Lads’-love, they call it oftener,” he said, with a 
sly glance at her. “ A pretty name, Babette.” 

“ Yes, ’tis pretty, sir. What then? ” she asked, with 
downcast eyes. 

“ Nay, I was but wondering how you came to like 
the herb so well—wondering about many things, child.” 


THE RUFFLER’S FARE-YE-WELL 


431 

“Have you noticed any change in father lately?” 
said Barbara abruptly. “ He ages fast, Parson Hor- 
rocks, and yet he will not give up the work that takes 
him every night to the room above the laithe.” 

“ I have been thinking much of him, and more of the 
work he does. Suppose we were all mistaken, Babs? 
Suppose it were no fantastic search after magic stones 
that he was making? As I said once to Stephen, he 
may very well be working at some great invention; I 
have heard of men being ridden by such labour to the 
exclusion of all else/’ 

“ You think that it could be? Indeed, I have made 
many guesses, sir, but never one so curious as yours.” 

“ Yet Tim o’ Tab’s is vastly useful to him; and yes¬ 
terday, when I was up at Benty Farm, I found him 
burning charcoal—not for himself, for he burns only 
coal when combing. Charcoal, Babs, would be the 
fuel needful for the Wynyates work-room, where little 
smoke is wanted; and Tim will know as much as 
Stephen Royd, I’ll warrant, about the details of ma¬ 
chinery, and so his services are doubly precious to the 
Squire.” 

“ I should like to believe it so,” said the girl mus- 
ingly. 

“ Ay, and that is why I show so great a curiosity 
about it; ’twould ease my mind, as well as yours, could 
I feel that he was following some such useful task.” 

“ And yet I cannot think it—he would not surely be 
so bitter against trade if he were inventing machinery 
to help it on? It was this feeling, you remember, that 
first—that first came between Stephen and himself.” 


43 2 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Scarcely came between them, child; and now they 
are warm friends as ever. Eh, lassie, but it’s good to 
feel that Wynyates has come back to its old restful¬ 
ness ! ” 

She understood him, and flushed slightly; then 
smiled, as he had seen the sunlight creep and broaden 
over the dawn-grey moor. 

“ I think, sir, we are a folk to ourselves up here,” 
she said. 

“ Yes, yes; I knew no good would come of it when 
first an alien settled at the Heights. And now there’s 
a chance for Stephen to come to his own again, and 
he’ll not let it slip, I fancy.” 

“ I wonder do you mean to offer me cake and wine, 
Parson Horrocks?” said Barbara, demurely mischiev¬ 
ous. 

“ There! I grow inhospitable with old age, and I 
believe a saffron cake is waiting for you—you were 
ever partial to it, were you not? ” 

He opened the gate and bowed her through with 
playful ceremony, and she in turn made him a low 
curtesy. 

“ Babette,” he said, “ you’re the bonniest thing in 
all the moorside, and may I be forgiven for telling you 
so.” 

The same thought was in Stephen’s mind as he came 
out of the tavern an hour or so thereafter and caught a 
glimpse of Barbara at the churchyard wicket; but he 
was younger than the Parson, and so he field his peace. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


CHRISTMASTIDE 

A UTUMN and winter were over, and still Royd 
was working all his days and half of many 
nights. The speculation in tallow that had 
turned the balance had brought him more than he had 
hoped for at the time; and since then the tide had 
turned altogether in his favour. 

They said in Marshcotes that Royd’s luck was un¬ 
conquerable, and that he had emerged from trade-diffi¬ 
culties with an ease no other man could have expected; 
but the record of the mill-master’s days would have 
shown a different reason for success. Six months 
might count for little in the round of humdrum work, 
and it might well seem to his combers and his spinners 
that Royd had come easily by the money lately earned; 
yet each moment of each day had been full of deep 
anxiety and deeper effort; each moment, in the first 
month of strain, had found him busy, not only with 
his own affairs, but with the constant need to keep in 
mind Squire Cunliffe’s welfare rather than remember 
his own grey outlook on the future. Without hope 
for himself, without love, with scarcely an ambition, 
he had fought his way at the beginning of this, his 
second probation; and even when Barbara was free 
433 


434 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


and the Heights once more within his grasp, he could 
not bring himself at once to let the sense of strain 
grow less. 

Only at rare intervals had he felt the buoyancy of 
success, that buoyancy which in old days had now and 
then surprised him in the midst of his Ishmael-like 
withdrawal from his fellows; but he would pause 
sometimes, when the sweat of conflict ran too thickly 
down, to taste that peace which lay deeper than any 
feeling of mere buoyancy could reach. 

Little by little, meanwhile, he was putting capital 
away, until with the spring of the next year he was 
able to redeem the mortgages upon the Heights. The 
interest on the Wynyates property was paid with a 
regularity which he found a trifle disconcerting; for 
he knew the old Squire to be in dire straits, and if it 
were true, as Parson Horrocks had hazarded, that he 
was busy with inventions, then he would doubtless 
need all, nay, more, than the slender stock of money at 
his command. 

“ What can I do ? ” he would ask himself, time after 
time. “ I could return the deeds to him, but he would 
think it an insult to his pride; I could send word 
through Lawyer Fairchild that the interest need not 
be paid, but then again he would resent it. It is hard 
to think of him up yonder, penniless almost, and with¬ 
out a hope of gaining more—unless, indeed his inven¬ 
tions were to bring prosperity.” He smiled in dry 
fashion. “ Bring prosperity! Inventions are not wont 
to bring in money, until some idle fellow has added a 
touch of his own to the machine and claimed all the 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


435 


profit. Besides, he should have money now—now— 
and there’s no way of persuading him to acceptance of 
it.” 

He sought the Parson’s advice, without telling him 
more of the Squire’s affairs at Wynyates than that they 
were embarrassed. And the older man thought long 
about it; but could come to no better conclusion than 
had Royd himself. 

“ Best leave it for awhile, lad,” he said at last. “ If 
his affairs grow hopeless, you may step in then and 
rescue him; or if you should weary of seeing the best 
thing in life slip through your grasp—” He did not 
finish his sentence, but glanced up at Stephen with the 
old droll air. 

Royd shook his head—the mark of obstinacy which 
he had learned long since from his father. “ The 
Heights needs money yet, Parson—a round ten thou¬ 
sand to put it into trim and to maintain it. And ten 
thousand is long in the making sometimes.” 

“ Foolish lad! You were the same in the last spring, 
when you talked of it as though all must be done to a 
house before you deigned to ask a mistress to come to 
it. All or nothing with you Royds—well, go your own 
way, and we shall see what comes of it; but if you find 
an empty nest under the grey house-eaves up yonder, 
you need not lay the blame on me.” 

Royd laughed as he went his way, and only settled 
the more doggedly to work after listening to the other’s 
warning. And still his business prospered; and the old 
habit, discontinued for awhile, held with him still—that 
nightly walk up Hazel Dene which gave him a glimpse 


4 3 6 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


of the Heights gables. There was a rarer happiness to 
him now, however, in the pilgrimage, for he had all but 
lost this house of dreams—had held it lost, indeed, for 
many an anxious month while he was working for the 
old Squire’s peace of mind. And now that it was his 
again, there was a new light upon the house, upon 
the guardian trees, upon the steep green slope that 
wandered downward to the beck; for abnegation had 
touched success with something finer than he had 
understood in olden days. 

“ Well, Stephen? Does the old house look friendly 
to you nowadays?” said a voice at his elbow, as he 
stood at a December gloaming-tide and watched the 
frost-sky redden behind the shoulder of the hill. 

“You here, Squire! I little thought to see you at 
this hour in Hazel Dene.” 

“ Did you not? Yet I have business with you, and 
very pressing business, seeing it is Barbara’s. She 
wants you to be with us on Christmas Eve, according 
to old custom.” 

“ I shall be glad, sir—nay, the season would lack all 
its warmth if it were passed anywhere except at Wyn- 
yates.” 

“And you will spend the night with us? Yes, of 
course, of course. And now walk with me, Stephen, 
as far as Marshcotes Parsonage for I have a like invi¬ 
tation to carry to the Parson.” 

Royd followed him down the narrow track. “ You 
are kind to bring the message in person, Squire,” he 
said. 

“ Well to speak truth, Stephen—I felt some repara- 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


437 


tion was due to you. You have been so seldom to 
Wynyates of late, and we have missed you, and I 
fancied you were drifting into your old way of keeping 
aloof from all your friends. It is a bad habit, lad, a 
bad habit.” 

“ And so it is, Squire, and one I hope to be able to 
abandon by and by.” 

“ You mean to go back to the land? ” said the other, 
with a quick glance. 

“ All being well, within the next few months.” 

“ Lad, that is good hearing! The land is the only 
foothold for a gentleman, and it is unseemly in a 
Royd to go moving day-long among wool and cloth 
and spinning-frames.” 

Land was the only foothold for a gentleman. The 
phrase lingered in Royd’s mind during the week that 
followed; it expressed so clearly what was his own 
belief, and it was, moreover, so oddly out of harmony 
with the Parson’s suggestion as to what went on by 
night in the old laithe across the courtyard. 

“ There’ll be a white Christmas, if this promise 
holds,” thought Stephen, as he took a farewell glance 
at the sky. “ That is as it should be, too, at Wynyates; 
green winters suit the old house ill.” 

And white it was before the dawn, with snow still 
drifting out of the murky sky, with a piping northern 
wind, and hoarse complaining of the grouse. Then 
the sky cleared, as if by magic, and the blue shone 
bright with a frost that held for longer than any man 
in Marshcotes wished it to. 

“ Ah, this is the old times back, and the old 


43 8 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


weather! ” cried Parson Horrocks, as he and Stephen 
rode to Wynyates on the Christmas Eve. 

“ And there’ll be the old sense of home about the 
place,” said Stephen. “ Upon my word, Parson, I 
begin to wonder which is dearer to me—Wynyates 
yonder, or the Heights.” 

So deep in snow was the house shrouded, that, as 
they rode up the lane, the gables and the chimney- 
stacks showed as so many rough lines and hillocks of 
fleecy white; the horsing-steps were scarce distinguish¬ 
able, the trees dropped silver splashes as the wind 
swayed their branches in the moonlight. Fair as a 
dream the old place was, and soft as in dreamland fell 
the last wandering snowflakes of a shower that until 
now had hid the moon’s face outright. A foot-track 
had been hardened all up the winding road from Ling 
Crag village, for there was no child in the parish but 
knew the good cheer offered every Christmastide by 
Squire Cunliffe’s kitchen. 

Roomy, full of queer nooks and angles, the white¬ 
washed kitchen was the cosiest corner of all the house, 
when, as now, a great fire roared up the chimney and 
the pewter dishes ranged along the rack shone like so 
many red-grey eyes. The bread-creel overhead was 
weighted down with mistletoe and holly, set in between 
the crisp brown leaves of oatcake. Full of great stir it 
was to-night, as little Mistress Barbara stood at the 
table with a piled heap of Christmas cheer before her, 
and the bairns came forward one by one to have their 
hands over-filled. The Squire stood by the hearth, trim 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


439 


in his dress, cheery of face and voice, and passed a 
quiet jest now and then with Stephen Royd; the very 
cat upon the hearth, dozing with paws outspread to¬ 
ward the blaze, seemed full of seasonable cheer, and the 
children’s voices echoed shrilly in the rafters over¬ 
head. 

The Squire was close on seventy now, and he could 
remember no Christmas Eve at Wynyates here that 
had not known the children; many he could recall when 
the gentry, too, had danced the morrow in—but 
dwindling fortunes had forbidden any such brave show 
of late. He could remember when Barbara, grown 
now to womanhood, stood at this same table and 
scarcely reached the top of it as she used to play the 
part of Lady Bountiful. Stephen was a fine-grown 
youngster in those days, and always claimed a sort of 
right in the little mistress; even now he had something 
of the old lad’s look about him to the Squire, as he 
watched the rugged face go soft at pleading of the chil¬ 
dren for this or that upon the board. Well, Barbara 
and he should have been mated by this time, if all had 
been as he had prayed for; but Bancroft had stepped 
in between and he had tried to choose for Barbara’s 
welfare in giving his consent. 

The old man sighed amid the merrymaking. For 
Christmas brought home to him some bitter thoughts 
among the kindlier ones—thoughts of prosperity that 
had been, and of the galling uphill road that he had 
trodden since his fortunes dwindled. And under all 
else—under the fret of present trouble and past dis- 


440 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


aster—was the memory of Barbara’s mother, with her 
delicate, proud face, and gentle voice; and that mem¬ 
ory, if sad at all, was sweeter than them all. 

His musings were interrupted by the sound of a 
firm step along the passage and the rush of fresh air 
through the opened door. 

“ Peace to this house,” said Parson Horrocks, stand¬ 
ing big and ruddy in the doorway. 

“ And peace to your house,” answered the Squire, 
as he went and gripped his old friend by the hand. 

Time-honoured as their Sunday bottle of port at the 
Bull tavern, the greeting had passed between them 
every Christmastide for close on forty years; and for 
near twenty years the Parson had claimed the kiss with 
which he greeted Barbara, and the deft word of flattery 
that brought the roguishness into her cheeks. 

“ And Stephen, too,” he cried. “ Why, then, we’re 
all together here—your family, Squire, your family.” 

He glanced merrily at Royd, and then at Barbara; 
for ever since young Bancroft had forfeited his claim in 
Barbara, the Parson had allowed himself to be well 
pleased whenever these two were together. Truth to 
tell, he wondered why Stephen had let the grass grow 
under his feet for so many months; surely, however 
anxious he had been to make his fortune all again 
before he turned aside from the single-minded pursuit 
of trade, the time had come long since when he might 
speak; for he did not guess that Stephen, cool and 
straightforward in all other matters of this life, was 
sadly perplexed where Barbara was concerned—per¬ 
plexed, yet mindful of a certain far-off day at Wye- 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


441 


collar, when they had stopped in the old lane for a 
long searching glance, and had learned the true way of 
their hearts. 

The children, no longer to be gainsaid, began to 
clamber up the Parson, or to clutch his hands, or to 
offer him of the good things which had been given 
them; and only when a second rush of cold air followed 
the opening of the kitchen door, and Tim o’ Tab’s 
came in with Tabitha, did they forsake one cherished 
friend for another. 

“ Timotheus, I wish you better things than you de¬ 
serve; come, ’tis Christmas* time, and even your nets 
and snares must be forgiven you this once.” 

“ Ay, I reckon they mun, Parson,” Tim answered 
cheerfully; “ they’re gooid friends to a man at Christ- 
mastide, if ye come to think on’t, an’ they say there’s 
to be hare for dinner to-morn at Marshcotes Parson¬ 
age.” 

“ Gossip,Tim, pure gossip; never heed it.” 

Tim did not answer, for he was looking at the Squire, 
and the Squire at him, and when they gave each other 
Christmas greeting there was a gravity in the poacher’s 
voice, a weariness in old Squire Cunliffe’s, which 
seemed apart from the spirit of the season. When Bar¬ 
bara intervened, however, the wickedness returned to 
Tim’s uninjured eye, and the laughter to his voice; and 
by and by he was playing blind man, surrounded by a 
score of laughing bairns—for Tim understood all chil¬ 
dren as well as he understood Flick, his terrier, or any 
other boisterous living thing. 

“ Tabitha, I took a great care on my shoulders when 


442 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


I wedded you to Tim,” said the Parson, with a hand 
upon her shoulder. “ Tell me, does he wander out o’ 
nights, or have you cured him for the most part ? ” 

“ Nay, sir, theer war too mich wanted curing, an’ 
I started ower late. But theer! He’s Tim, for all that, 
an’ I wodn’t swop ony lass i’ th’ moorside.” 

“ Well, well! What it is to have a good wife to say 
the best for one! Tim, remember that you never will 
deserve your good fortune.” 

“ I’ll try, Parson—for I’ve a sort o’ feeling ye’re 
right, though I’m noan just pleased that Tabitha should 
hear me say’t.” 

The Parson laughed, his round, contented laugh, 
that somehow always brought sinners to a conviction 
of his goodness and his peace with all men; and by 
and by he linked his arm through Royd’s and followed 
the Squire and Barbara into the warm, low-raftered 
parlour. The log-sheen seemed cosier here by contrast 
with the snow which lay banked upon the window-sill 
or which fell in solitary, ghost-like flakes athwart the 
panes. 

“ This is an old-fashioned Christmas, Squire. It 
brings one’s boyhood back,” cried Parson Horrocks, 
rubbing his hands before the blaze. “ Ah, Babette, 
you’re over young to know the winters that we used to 
have! The world was not so weary, I think, then as 
now.” 

“ Is the world weary?” murmured Stephen, his 
glance instinctively seeking Barbara’s. “ I thought 
it gaining every day in vigour, sir.” 

“ Hark to him, Squire! A pinch of snuff with you. 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


44 3 

Hark to this boy who finds the world all that it used 
to be to us. Are we to take it kindly of him ? ” 

“ Take it very kindly, sir—and be sure that if I grow 
older with the comeliness of certain of my friends, I 
shall be well content.” 

“ Oh, fie, lad Stephen, fie! This is not like your 
wonted speech at all. Where is your sobriety, and the 
plain speech that you love ? ” 

“ There’s a house upon the hill, Parson, where my 
folk lived once on a day—where I am free to live at 
last—and that has stolen all my soberness away, I 
fear.” 

The Squire, taking no part in the talk, was eyeing 
Stephen gravely; he had grown so used to think him 
poor that now it was hard to realise how rich he was, 
hard to realise that he had done with trade for good 
and all, and that he was destined, if all went well, to 
enjoy his own again. The pity of it! If he had but 
known this when he forced Barbara into the arms of 
Bancroft of the Heights, how differently he would have 
acted. But he had not known; and Stephen had been 
sent to the wall in favour of the weaker man. Long ago 
as it was, the hot blood stirred in Squire Cunliffe as he 
thought of Bancroft’s treachery; it was an honour that 
Barbara should have stooped to him—and he had 
shown his sense of it by paying court to an unlettered 
wench. Poor lassie! Poor Babette! Not because 
Bancroft had set her free, but because she had ever 
been in any sense at his command. 

“ Come, daddy, you’re not one of us to-night at all,” 
said Barbara coaxingly. “ What is it, dear? ” 


444 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Old memories, maybe, child; they crowd in on one 
at such times,” he answered, stroking her upturned 
face. 

“Yes, they crowd in on one,” Royd murmured. 
“ Even I have lived long enough, sir, to hear many a 
ghost go rustling up and down the parlour here.” 

Barbara half turned her head, but would not look at 
him. 

“ Dead laughter, and dead songs,” the old Squire 
murmured; then, with a sudden return to self-posses¬ 
sion, “ Stephen, I am a poor host to-night,” he said. 
“ Ask Barbara to sing to us, until the ringers come.” 

She scarce needed the invitation, but sat down to the 
spinet, and smiled a little softly, and sang the ballad 
which long ago had grown to be a bond between herself 
and Stephen. 

“ I know a maiden kind and fair, 

Was never maid so pleased my eye.” 


The words rang clear and sweet, and Stephen felt 
the old dreams return upon him in a wave; all the late 
coldness, that had lain between them, all the deep 
sense of loss when she had plighted troth to Bancroft, 
all the fears he had felt for her, had yielded to the 
kindliness of the season and the hour. The Parson, 
smiling quietly, watched them both—the maid who 
sang and the man who listened—and it came to him 
that now at last the desire of his life was nearing fulfil¬ 
ment. On and on went Barbara, from ballad to old 
ballad, while her father sat with his eyes upon the fire 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


445 


seeing dead faces there—while Stephen, too, watched 
the fire-face take all one living shape. 

The Squire dozed by and by, and Parson Horrocks, 
with a roguish face turned sideways to the spinet, 
avowed it his intention to join the children in the 
kitchen once again. They scarcely heard him—Barbara 
at the spinet, and Stephen standing by her as she sang. 
Something had come to both of them to-night; the 
season, with all it meant of old association—the wintry 
rustle of the wind without and the warm glow within 
—the sense that each was free to take up friendship 
where they had lost it earlier in the year—all was like 
some charm, beneficent and righteous, that lay over 
them. 


“ And change the earth, or change the sky, 

I shall love her till I die,” 

finished Barbara, and sat with head bent over the keys 
in the attitude which Royd so well remembered. 

“ The words are new to-night, and the air is new,” 
he murmured. 

“ Nay, but they are old, Stephen,—so old I almost 
feared to sing them to you.” 

“ What ails me then? For they’re so different alto¬ 
gether—deeper, and truer, Babs, I think.” 

“ It may be you are happier—is it so ? ” she said, 
after a silence. “ You came to-night like one who had 
brought us some good news.” 

“ And so I have, but you’re not to know it until 
Christmas morn, when all gifts should be made.” 


446 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ They are made on Christmas Eve sometimes; is it 
not a prettier custom, Stephen ? ” 

“Fie, child! You must not yield so to your curi¬ 
osity.” 

“ But you are happier? It is news of your own for¬ 
tune, I know. And I am glad, for you have been so 
harassed and so quiet of late.” 

Again there was a silence, broken by the old Squire 
as he turned uneasily; then he was quiet again, and the 
voices of the children rose and fell from the distant 
kitchen. And still the silence held them, until Royd 
suddenly stooped down, and turned her face to him 
and held it so. “ Babette,” he said, “ I don’t know 
whether my fortune is good or bad. I came to ask 
you.” 

“ You—you came to ask me? ” she faltered. 

“ Yes—to ask if— Child—you must know I’ve 
loved you these long years past,” he broke off, his 
voice deepening, his whole ‘air growing masterful. 
“ What have you to say to me ? ” 

“No, Stephen—please, not yet! Do not ask me for 
an answer yet. I—I do not know myself—” 

“ Close upon twenty years I’ve waited, Babette, and 
I’m impatient.” 

“ You should have learned patience, Stephen, in that 
time, I should have thought,” said she, with a flash of 
her old self. “ Oh, but I wish you had left it there, 
left everything just where it was.” 

She began once more to run her fingers lightly across 
the keys, but he took and held them prisoners. “ You 
shall give me an answer now,” he said, smiling a little 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


447 


at his own bluntness; “ there’s only one Christmas gift 
I crave, and that is you. Babs, I know what you’re 
thinking—that you were not always free to listen to 
me—that another came between us once—yes, but you 
were never bound—never.” 

“ I was never bound except in name,” she repeated, 
with a straightforward glance that met his and fell 
again. “ That is a true word, Stephen; ” she shivered 
a little, for even yet the thought would return to her 
at times, bringing a sort of sickness with it, that Ban¬ 
croft of the Heights had come very near to wedding 
her. 

Royd saw the action, and his heart leaped to know 
that Bancroft had never neared even the threshold of 
her favour. Clear-cut as the blue moorland sky that 
had framed it, he saw again the picture of that sum¬ 
mer’s day at Wyecollar, when Barbara and he had 
climbed the old Hall carriage-way, and had stopped 
half up the slope to read what was plainly written on 
each other’s faces. She felt his mastery, and tried to 
combat it; for she was proud, and shy, and doubtful 
of all things just now. Yet under all there was the 
pulsing glow of life, and the memory of days gone, and 
the feel of summer’s dawns and wild November’s sun¬ 
sets that had seen Stephen and herself grow into com¬ 
radeship. 

“ We were good comrades once,” she said, following 
the thought, and striving still to hold him at arm’s- 
length. 

“ And now we’re more, for you love me, child,” he 
cried, and there was no gainsaying him. 


448 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


The snowflakes, falling sparsely, seemed to come 
peeping in at the parlour window, and to halt a little 
ere they fell, as if they would see more of the light and 
warmth within. The wind came fluting at the panes, 
and went again with a hungry wail across the shivering 
moor. The red-eyed peats stared up at old Squire 
Cunliffe, dozing still in the great chair by the hearth. 
But Barbara’s hands were fast in Royd’s now, and 
homeless wind and shivering snow were both forgotten. 

The moments passed, and still they kept the same 
rapt silence, until at last the Squire began to mutter 
in his sleep. 

“ Tim should be coming for it on the morrow,” he 
was saying. “ Ay, Tim will come for it—and I must 
have it ready. Pound after pound—is the charcoal 
lighted, think you?—pound after pound—” 

“ Father is ill-at-ease to-night,” murmured Barbara. 
“ What has troubled him so much of late, I wonder? ” 

“ Perhaps I will tell you before to-morrow’s 
finished.” 

“ You? ” she cried quickly. “ Do you know, then, 
and have you never told me? That was not kind of 
you, Stephen, when you knew how anxious and how 
troubled I had been.” 

“ But the secret was his, not mine; even now he does 
not guess how much I kndw.” 

On the sudden there came the sound of merry voices 
from without, and then the muffled beat of footsteps 
crunching the frozen snow. 

“ Noel, Noel! Peace on earth and to this house,” 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


449 


cried a stentorian voice which all within the parlour 
recognised as Billy Puff’s. 

The door was opened to them promptly and they 
trooped into the kitchen—a brisk, frost-reddened com¬ 
pany, each man with a bag of green baize across his 
shoulder, and each man leaving a little track of snow 
behind him as he walked. The children were finishing 
the last game of blind-man’s buff, and their mothers, 
busy some with getting shawls in readiness and some 
with supper of spice-bread and cheese, were be-rating 
them with brisk cheeriness. 

“ Now, bairns, we’ve come to waken Father Christ¬ 
mas! ” cried the leader of the ringers. 

“ Ay, they’ve come to waken him right enow, an’ 
he’s bahn to come wi’ a pack on his back, same as t’ 
ringers here,” said Tim o’ Tab’s to the little lass who 
was clinging to his hand. “ Thee bide wakeful to-neet, 
lass, an’ tha’ll see summat tha niver seed afore.” 

“ She willun’t,” struck in the mother drily. “ Christ¬ 
mas is Christmas, but a lean larder’s a lean larder, an’ 
there’s little goes into a stocking, as t’ saying is, when 
there’s little to be fund i’ th’ house.” 

“ Well, now, we niver can tell; I’ve knawn sich 
things happen myseln—ay, I’ve knawn sich things hap¬ 
pen,” repeated Tim, with a thought that at least one 
stocking should be well-filled that night if he had wit 
to find a way. “ Come, lads, ye mak a fearful lot o’ 
to-do about your bits o’ bells,” he broke off, as the ring¬ 
ers laid out the green bags upon the table and began to 
place their bells in order. 


450 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Tim o’ Tab’s, ye’ve no head, an’ niver hed, for sich 
matters as bell-ringing,” said Billy Puff, with more 
than his usual importance. “ It taks brains, lad, to 
keep i’ time an’ tune.” 

“ I’ve heard so,” Tim agreed—“ but I niver reetly 
thowt it true—for I alius said to myseln, ‘ Why, Billy 
Puff can ring a bit.’ ” 

“ Fratching an’ sparring, an’ Christmas morning all 
but on ye! ” cried one of the women. “ Shame on ye, 
Tim o’^Tab’s.” 

Tim laughed light-heartedly. “ I mean no harm, 
nowther does Billy yonder,” he cried; “ but we’ve alius 
liked to dust each other’s jackets a bit.” 

“ Nah, lads! Are ye ready? ” said Billy, lifting one 
bell with his right hand, and holding the other ready 
in his left. 

“ Ready! ” answered all, and down came ten right 
hands, and out across the ffrelit kitchen rang that music 
of the hand-bells which to Barbara was the sweetest 
of all sounds she knew. 

She was standing in the doorway now, with Royd 
beside her, and behind them the old Squire and Parson 
Horrocks. “ Noel, Noel, Noel,” they seemed to echo 
and re-echo, these bells of Yule which had been rung 
at Wynyates here since she first learned to walk. They 
were plaintive, maybe, but it was with the plaintive¬ 
ness that young people only know—the vague sadness 
that looks forward, not backward only, and sees the 
rosy future beckoning up the stair of life. The very 
attitudes of the ringers were familiar as the housewalls 
themselves—Billy Puff, with the moisture getting 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


45 i 


thicker and thicker on his broad, red face, and his 
consequential manner heightened tenfold by his sense 
of leadership—Shackleton o’ Hoyles, who was spare 
as Billy was rotund, and who rang with nervous 
twitches, as if there were a foeman close behind him, 
knife in hand—Dick the Tinker, with his face of brass 
and his steady swing of right and left. Year followed 
year, and still they were the same folk who came to 
ring Christmas in at Wynyates here; only the children 
seemed to change much, and some of these were 
mothers now who were only elbow high when Barbara 
first remembered them. The picture was a fair one, 
and it was apt to live in the girl’s mind the long twelve- 
month through—to live, and to bring peace with it. 

Change after change was rung, until the children had 
all gone, and the great clock in the chimney-corner 
pointed to the midnight hour. The windows were 
opened then, and the bells lifted all in readiness, and 
when the sharp wind bore the sound of Marshcotes 
steeple-clock across the moors, the merriest peal of all 
rang out into the snowflakes and the frost. And there 
was hand-shaking to follow, and lusty voices rising in 
praise and thankfulness—Barbara’s high notes thread¬ 
ing through Royd’s bass and running forward to join 
the gruffer tones of Billy Puff and his associates. 

The old Squire broached the ale-barrel then, and 
Barbara slipped quietly away into the parlour. 

“ Now, lads, a carol before you drink! ” cried Par¬ 
son Horrocks. “ And then a blessing on the food—■ 
and after that—why it is late in the day to teach you 
what rightly follows a carol and a grace.” 


452 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


“ We knaw reet weel, Parson,” laughed Tim o’ 
Tab’s; “an’ we should do, seeing th’ store o’ Christ¬ 
mases ’at th’ Squire lies seen us keep at Wynyates.” 

“ You have helped the Squire to furnish forth the 
feast, belike,” laughed Parson Horrocks. 

He was thinking only of the grouse and snipe upon 
the supper-board, but the Squire turned sharply to him 
with question, surmise, and surprise all written plain 
upon his face. Tim o’ Tab’s, too, laughed with a shade 
of disquiet 'as he denied all share in such provisioning, 
and the pause which followed was so strained that even 
Billy Puff, amidst his close attention to his plate, felt 
that something had gone amiss. The pause was 
broken soon, however, by Tim o’ Tab’s, and thence¬ 
forward there was no cessation of chatter and rough 
jest until the last of them had gone their ways down 
the white lane with the trodden, ice-bound path show¬ 
ing black against the snow. The wind had fallen now, 
and the dry crispness of the night kept Royd and Par¬ 
son Horrocks at the door long after the ringers had 
passed out of sight. 

“ Another Christmas dawn, lad Stephen,” said the 
Parson slowly. “ Ah, well, there are few left to us 
who have seen many. It is as well, maybe—for there 
is more good that side the Veil, lad, than ever we shall 
find on this.” 

“ There is good everywhere, Parson—and may God 
make us thankful for it,” answered Royd, with a sud¬ 
den deepening of the voice. 

“ Eh, that sounds unlike you, Stephen—is it as I 
said? Do you recall what I once told you, how you 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


453 


laboured all for self in the old days. It was a house 
you wanted, and a wife, and riches—and then the card- 
house dropped a-pieces, and you found sacrifice your 
mistress. Well, is she as bad a mistress, as they say? ” 

“ She is hard, and she is tender underneath—like the 
folk who live upon the uplands here, I think. Nay, 
Parson, I have nothing but thanks for what I lost— 
and gained.” 

The other looked upward at the sky, bright now 
with frosted stars, then at the shrouded strip of garden; 
mystery on mystery there was—the stars in far-off 
space, and near at hand the sleeping roots of flower 
and herb, that would one day wake in answer to the 
spring. So still it all was, so full of the silence that 
probed below the littleness of speech; and he was part 
of it; and Stephen here was part of it; and on the hills 
there was the beckoning hand of endeavour and of 
sacrifice. 

“ Well, let us to bed,” he said, after a long silence. 
“ The Squire will think us scant of courtesy if we keep 
him longer. It is Christmas morn; have you no con¬ 
fidences for me, Stephen ? ” he added a moment later, 
and his tone was almost wistful. 

“ You want the old tale, sir, I know,” laughed Royd, 
with a glance at the candle-lighted windows close be¬ 
hind them. He would not tell the Parson yet what he 
could tell him if he would; for there was something 
sacred in the confession he had lately won from Bar¬ 
bara. 

“ How sweet the night is, Parson Horrocks,” came 
the girl’s voice from down the passage. 


454 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ It is sweet as little Barbara herself—but over-cold 
for her,” the Parson answered, turning to meet her lest 
she should forget how lightly she was gowned. “ Ah, 
we have found you, Squire! I was telling Stephen here 
that you would be wanting us to bed.” 

The Squire carried a bunch of keys in one hand, a 
candle in the other, as if he were bent on seeing to the 
fastenings of the doors. “ Nay, not so fast, Parson, 
not so fast!” he cried. “You must take a glass of 
wine with me—and you, Stephen—to usher in the day.” 

“ Not to-night, Squire. We’ll let it mellow, if it 
please you, until the dinner-hour.” 

Suggestion and reply were as of old, and Royd 
smiled across at Barbara to hear the well-known inter¬ 
change of courtesies. Then Barbara bade them a good¬ 
night and fair awakening, and they watched her climb 
the stair, a slim, straight figure, white against the dark 
old balustrade. 

“ I have had a Christmas gift to-night, sir,” said 
Stephen then, seeking the Squire’s glance and holding 
it—“ a gift that needs no wine to better it.” 

The Squire did not grasp his meaning. “ A gift, 
Stephen? Has Babette been keeping something for 
you against the day ? ” 

“ She has, sir, if you’ll consent, that is, to the trans¬ 
fer of the gift.” 

“Why should I not consent?” the Squire began; 
and Parson Horrocks gave the answer. 

“ And you never told me, lad, just now when I in¬ 
vited confidence,” he cried. “ Do you not understand, 
Squire ? ” 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


455 


A curious light came into the Squire’s face—a flush 
of pleasure first, and then a sudden pallor. “ What is 
the gift? ” he asked hoarsely. 

“ Barbara herself—Barbara, whom I’ve worked for, 
Squire, more years than I remember. Will you give 
her to me ? ” 

The Squire was silent for a long moment; then, “ I 
will not,” he said slowly. 

Royd stared in sheer surprise, and so did Parson 
Horrocks. Refusal—though he had not counted on it 
—Stephen could have understood; but the curtness of 
it took him by surprise. 

“You will not, sir?” he echoed. “But I—have 
confessed my love to her, and she cares for me—” 

“ It cannot be, Stephen,” the other interrupted. 
“ And now, not a word more of this, so that we 
may be good friends still. Your hand on it, my 
lad.” 

The younger man held out his hand mechanically; 
why had he not seen this beforehand, he was thinking 
bitterly—seen it before he asked for Barbara’s confes¬ 
sion? It had been so easy, there in the candle-lighted 
parlour, to plead his suit at first hand—but now his 
haste took on another aspect. 

As for Parson Horrocks, he was dumbfounded. 
That the Squire should ever have urged young Ban¬ 
croft’s suit had been a wonder to him; that he should 
refuse Stephen’s was beyond belief. Stephen had been 
his favourite from boyhood; nor did trade stand be¬ 
tween them now, as it had done of old. Of a clean, 
straightforward life he had always been, and now he 


456 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


was rich and master of the Heights—what ailed the 
Squire to deal so curtly with him? But the Squire’s 
lips were sealed so far as that topic was concerned; 
awhile since he had thought it easy to acknowledge 
Stephen’s claims; but he could not, now he was asked, 
for a plain yes or no, let Royd enter into any such com¬ 
pact without telling him more than he had confessed to 
Bancroft of the Heights; and he was too proud even 
yet for any such confession. 

“ A farewell pinch with you, Parson. Stephen, a 
pinch with you. And a good night’s rest be waiting 
for you on your pillows,” said the Squire, taking down 
the snuff-box of black oak which held the place of 
honour on the mantel. 

Puzzled still, they took their candles from the little 
table by the door, while their host struck flint to tinder; 
and Stephen, catching sight of the old man’s face at 
unawares, saw 7 that deep lines of distress were in it, 
and that his bearing, straight a moment since, had 
changed completely when he thought that none ob¬ 
served him. 

“The Squire ages faster than he ought; there’s se¬ 
cret trouble of some sort at w^ork,” said the Parson, as 
he and Royd went up the stair together. 

“ Yes, or he would not have denied me Barbara, and 
given no reason. Well, we must wait, Parson; and 
that is one lesson I have mastered well—to wait.” 

“ Keep a good heart, lad, and trust; his reasons will 
one day come to light, and you can show him then how 
little they are worth. What, Barbara and you not 
come together? As well part man and wife.” 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


457 


The Squire himself, meanwhile, had seen to the 
fastenings below-stairs, and once again, as on Bar¬ 
bara’s birthday-night, he went out by the side-door and 
crossed the mistai-yard. The silence seemed to deepen 
as the night wore on, the starlight struck more wan 
upon the snow; a little wind had risen, too, and its 
touch was cold and wet. There was no owl upon the 
gable-end to-night, nor any sound except the sleepy 
rattling of the cattle at their chains from a mistal near 
at hand. The old man, wrapped none too warmly 
against the cold, shivered as he moved to the foot of 
the stair leading to his work-room, and slowly mounted 
to it. He was cold in body, but colder still in mind; 
for to his fancy disaster seemed to crouch upon the very 
threshold of old Wynyates. He closed the door be¬ 
hind him, and presently a light shone through the 
blurred window-panes; and after that the sound of feet 
going heavily across the boards—going heavily and at 
constant intervals—stole out into the silence of the 
night. To and fro, to and fro, with now and then that 
sound as of a falling tool, which Tim o’ Tab’s had 
hearkened to upon a summer’s night gone by. Ail else 
were abed in Wynyates—the maids, and Barbara, 
Royd and Parson Horrocks—and if two of them at 
least were wakeful, it was no such wakefulness as kept 
the master of the house from out his bed. 

The Marshcotes clock sent its note twice across the 
shrouded moor; and still the Squire moved to and fro, 
and still the house slept on, until a band of waits came 
up the road, and broke suddenly into the Christmas 
hymn. 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


458 


“ Christians awake, salute the happy morn/’ rang 
out the wondrous song. 

Once more the heavy tool fell to the floor over¬ 
head, as if the Squire were startled; and the leader of 
the band, pointing upward to the lighted window when 
the carol ended, asked how it came that Squire Cunliffe 
was working on a Christmas morn. 

“Witchcraft, they say,” he muttered; “nay, he’ll 
addle no gooid, not he, fro’ ony sich searching after 
hidden matters.” 

“ Well, but he’s a gooid un, whativer he lakes at up 
i’ th’ laithe; an’ he’s father, too, to th’ little mistress— 
ay, there she is, God bless her! I thowt we’d win a 
glance fro’ her.” 

Barbara’s face showed at her casement for a mo¬ 
ment, framed by candle-shadows; and soon she was 
rousing the maids to bid them get supper ready for the 
wayfarers, since open house was a law not lightly dis¬ 
obeyed at Wynyates. She wondered if her father 
would be disturbed, and trusted that he would sleep 
through the bustle; he had looked so weary all the 
evening. 

The Squire was not asleep, however; he was listen¬ 
ing as the company below took up a Christmas Carol, 
and the tears were streaming down his face. But none 
knew this—except himself, and Grip the mastiff, who 
always shared his vigils with him. The carol-singers 
ate and drank their fill, and went their way, and left 
the house to silence and to sleep again; Barbara too, 
fell once again into slumber, and dreamed of Hazel 


CHRISTMASTIDE 


459 


Dene; three, four and five came tolling over the Marsh- 
cotes Moor, and then the sound of footsteps from the 
room above the laithe ceased suddenly, and again there 
was that falling of a heavy tool, followed by a howl, 
dreary and long-drawn-out, from Grip the mastiff. 


CHAPTER XXV 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 

B ARBARA heard the mastiff’s howl and ran to 
her window, Royd heard it, and roused him¬ 
self more slowly; even the Parson, heavy 
sleeper as he was, awoke at last to wonder what this 
whining was which seemed to fill the house. 

“ Where is the poor fellow ? ” murmured Barbara, 
not knowing where the sound came from. 

At first she thought he was in his usual place at the 
stair-foot, and that too much Christmas cheer had 
saddened sleep for him, then, as the whining merged 
into a steady baying, he seemed to be in the yard below. 
Yet surely he would have given tongue ere this if they 
had left him by mischance out of doors. 

The thought came to her, then, that he might be in 
the room above the laithe, and that her father—who 
would have rested, as she thought on this one morning 
of all others—was busy with the mysterious labour 
which had already filched so much of sleep from him. 
If Grip were there—and now indeed it seemed certain 
that he was—then something must have chanced to the 
Squire—something she dared not think of—something 
that might have stopped his vigils once and for all. 
The thought numbed her for a moment. She could 
460 




WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 461 


not go alone to face what waited her across the yard 
yonder; should she be coward enough to rouse Parson 
Horrocks, and ask him to accompany her? But little 
Barbara was a Cunliffe, and proud of it, and even now 
she would not listen to any such counsel of timidity. 
Wrapping a cloak about her after she had dressed in 
haste, she ran out on to the landing, shading her candle 
with one hand. The stair looked dark and eerie, and 
all was bitter cold; and for a moment she hesitated on 
the topmost step. While she stood there, trying to 
quell her terror, the door behind her opened, and Royd 
showed on the threshold; and without a word Barbara 
ran to him, set down her candle on the floor and gave 
him both her hands. 

“ Hold them tight, Stephen! I am afraid,” she said, 
like a little child. 

“ Grip has frightened you? ” he murmured, just as 
in far-off days he had played the man when fancied 
dangers met them by moor or wooded dene. “ Get back 
to your chamber, Babs, and Ell run down and let him 
in.” 

“ He—he is not at the door—he is in the laithe, I 
fear.” 

“ But why, child, should you fancy he is there ? He 
was lying in the hall here all the evening.” 

“ Father is—is at work, perhaps,” she said reluct¬ 
antly. The Squire’s labours were almost a shame to 
her, for she had little sympathy with such old-world 
matters as the Philosopher’s Stone, black magic, and 
the like, and she did not care that Stephen should be a 
witness of toil so thankless and heart-breaking. 


462 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


“ Nay, never on Christmas morn! All men rest for 
this one night and day, surely.” 

“ Not all men, Stephen—and father looked troubled 
this evening, so I thought, as if he had some matter 
on his mind. No, I—I will go alone,” she broke off, 
as they reached the side-door and Stephen drew the 
bolts back. 

“ You will not, lassie,” he said, in a new-born tone 
of mastery. “ It is too cold for you, and—” 

“ I am well wrapped against the cold, Stephen,—and 
indeed, I must go if anyone,—ah, Grip bays again! I 
doubt there’s grievous trouble waiting for us. And 
Stephen,” she added, a new fear coming to her, 
“ Stephen, father locks the door when he’s at work; 
what if we cannot get to him in time? ” 

She left the speech unfinished as they hurried out 
across the snow and up the lichened stairway, and yet 
for all his haste Royd stopped upon the threshold and 
half turned round to Barbara. He had known so long 
of this occupation of the Squire’s, and of his anxiety 
to keep secret the least detail of it; was it right that 
he should pry upon him now;? 

Grip heard them, though, and he was already scratch¬ 
ing furiously at the door. 

“ Why do you wait ? Open, open! ” panted Bar¬ 
bara. 

“ I wondered if— Nay, though, the danger is too 
urgent for such scruple.” 

The door yielded to his hand, for the Squire had 
been more careless than his wont to-night, not fearing 
any sort of interruption at such a season; and the two 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 463 

of them went quietly in. Grip lifted his fore-paws 
clean up to Barbara’s shoulders in his excitement, hid¬ 
ing all else in the room from her; nor could she quieten 
him just at once. 

“ Down, Grip, down, I say! ” she cried, until at last 
he freed her and turned round in very human fashion 
as if to show her what the trouble was. 

Barbara looked, and Royd looked, and a great cry 
broke from the girl’s lips; for the Squire lay prone upon 
the floor, and beside him were the instruments of that 
black magic which had earned him so queer a reputa¬ 
tion among the country-folk—an upright post of iron 
such as the wool-combers used; a bench with long 
slivers of the combed white wool upon it; and in the 
Squire’s clenched hand a heavy comb, the points of 
which had struck into the floor. 

“Father!” cried Barbara, kneeling down beside 
him; she saw the quiet body only, though Royd had 
taken in at one quick glance both Squire Cunliffe and 
the tools he used. 

He, too, knelt down beside the old man, while Bar¬ 
bara unfastened his stock and put her hand above his 
heart. It fluttered very faintly, and she whispered to 
Royd to go in search of stimulants. 

“Father, father!” she kept repeating feverishly, 
and wondered if Stephen would never get to the house 
and back again. 

He returned presently, and Grip’s face was as grave 
and as solicitous as any of the three while he watched 
Royd force in a little brandy between the Squire’s 
closed lips. The sick man stirred slightly, then moaned 


464- 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


a little; and last of all he opened his tired eyes upon 
his daughter and on Royd. He strove to rise, but 
Stephen pushed him gently back and made a pillow for 
him of the wool so lately combed. 

“ Lie quietly, sir; you have been—not well, ,, he 
murmured. 

The old Squire put one hand to his forehead with 
a gesture pitiable to see. “ The shame of it! ” he mut¬ 
tered feebly. “ The shame of it! Stephen—how— 
came you—to be here ? ” 

“ Grip roused us, and we feared that some mischance 
had overtaken you, that is all.” 

“All, all?” echoed the other. “It is not all; you 
have found me here—at work—with soiled hands —V 

“ Oh, father, you mustn’t think of that. What does 
it matter, now that you have come among us once 
again? What does it matter, daddy? ” 

She too had found time to glance around her, but 
was too preoccupied as yet to wonder at the mystery 
that had at last found explanation. Her whole mind 
was set upon her father’s quick recovery, and she busied 
herself with him in fifty little ways, while Royd stood 
off and watched them, and stole a glance from time to 
time at the wool-combs, the fleeces, the pot of earthen¬ 
ware that held the burning charcoal, and he under¬ 
stood now—none better—what the Squire’s witchcraft 
and his martyrdom had meant. 

Friendless, save for Grip’s companionship, wearied 
with the usual occupations of the day, old and weak 
and disillusioned, he had worked here at a thankless 
task; night after night he had plied the heavy comb; 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 465 


night after night he had fought the long battle with 
pride and weariness. No wild search after forbidden 
lore had kept him busy, nor stimulating effort to invent 
some new piece of machinery; sordid and dull his toil 
had been, and arduous enough to tax the strength of 
any man not bred to it from childhood, and he, the 
prosperous master-weaver, had hired the labour of one 
whose every nice susceptibility revolted from the 
thought of trade. 

The motive was clear which had led a Cunliffe of 
Wynyates to take up such occupation; and it was clear, 
too, how Tim o’ Tab’s found time amid his poaching 
and his idleness to bring so much combed wool to 
Hazel Mill. There had been surmise and conjecture 
all about the country-side as to the intimacy which 
had held between the Squire and Tim o’ Tab’s, but 
now the bond between them was explained. 

“ And we never guessed—never guessed, what he 
was going through,” he muttered, watching Barbara 
at her tender work. 

“ The shame, the shame 1 ” cried the old man, get¬ 
ting to his feet in tottering fashion and grasping at the 
pad-post for support. 

“ There’s no shame, sir—or shame such as I for one 
should be proud of,” cried Royd. 

“ Nay, lad, nay! ’Tis no work for a Cunliffe. I am 
ashamed.” He paused a moment, looking from one to 
the other of them with infinite pathos in his eyes. 

“ What is it, father? You are better, much better.” 

“ Yes, but you should not have found me here. I 
had planned it all with Tim, who had promised—what 


466 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


had he promised, Babs?—my mind grows dim again.” 
Again he stopped, and again he passed a hand across 
his forehead. “ Yes, yes, he promised to come here if 
—if anything should chance to me—and to take the 
combs and the wool away; lest you should see them. 
And now— Child, what brought you here ? ” 

Barbara was looking round the cobwebbed, draughty 
room, with its bare ceiling-beams and its neglected air. 
Free of her sharpest dread for the Squire’s safety, she 
had time to realise, as Royd had done, what the past 
years had seen going forward here; but, unlike Royd, 
she could not grasp the need for it. The Squire saw 
her look of wonderment, and a deeper flush crept into 
his wan cheeks. 

“ It was for my own pleasure—for pleasure that 
I worked up here, Babette,” he said, with a pitiful 
smile. 

“Nay, father! Not for pleasure, when you should 
have been abed—when—” 

“ But they said I studied magic here,” he went on, 
with the same strange air of banter. “ That was it, 
child—there’s witchcraft in these glossy threads— 
witchcraft, lad Stephen, is there not? ” 

Royd smiled faintly as he shook his head. Now and 
then, when he had found Jeisure to consider them, he 
had thought his own score years of conflict hard; 
but what were they compared with this self-abnegation 
of the Squire’s ? His own work had been done in day¬ 
light, with success to give it savour and youth to lessen 
its severity; but this other labour was the fruit of mus¬ 
cles long since past their work, the fruit of weariness 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 467 


that snatched an hour or two of sleep between the two 
long watches—watch of the day with its duties on the 
Bench or on the land, and watch of the night with this 
labour of the combs. How stately and well-habited the 
Squire was as he went about the parish; how careful 
of the Cunliffe dignity, whether he came to kirk or 
Petty Sessions; and all the while he had this other life 
behind him to drag his eyes down day-long in sleep. 
This weak old man was terrible in his isolation and his 
strength, and never more so, surely, than now, when 
his whole effort was to keep the truth from Barbara, 
lest she should think more than need be of these lonely 
vigils. 

“ Daddy, I do not understand. Oh, please be frank 
with me,” pleaded Barbara. 

“ There’s nothing in the world to understand—save 
that I have my recreations like other men. And why 
not, child? ” 

The Squire was striving bravely to keep up, though 
the late fainting-fit had left him weak and grey of face; 
and Royd saw that even now the old instinct had led 
him to conceal his hands under the lapels of his coat. 

“ He feared they would betray his occupation,” 
thought Stephen; “yet it is a cleanly one enough.” 

“Stephen, cannot you explain to me?” cried Bar¬ 
bara. “ I could have understood the other occupation 
—the crucibles, and phials, and—” 

“ Yonder’s the crucible, does it not suit thy fancy, 
little one? ” the Squire broke in, as he pointed to the 
combing-pot. Barbara would not be gainsaid, how¬ 
ever; and when she came and put her hand upon his 


468 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


shoulder, and looked at him with that winsome air of 
question and entreaty which brought her mother’s im¬ 
age back so plainly, the old Squire lost his bravery. 
A great sob broke from him, and he hid his head awhile 
between his hands—the hands which were already be¬ 
ginning to show plain marks of toil. 

“ Times have been hard, Babette—hard—just for 
the past few months,” he murmured. 

“ But it is years, father—years since you began to 
spend the long nights here.” 

“ Is it, child? Well, years slip by like months if one 
is busy. There were mortgages, perhaps—and some¬ 
times it was difficult, we’ll say, to pay the interest on 
them all. Why, what a foolish lass it is, to cry for such 
a little matter! It was only the interest on one mort¬ 
gage—just thirty pounds, no more—that could not 
well be met; and it was not to be borne that our 
straightened fortunes should be known and talked of 
in the parish—so I—” 

“ Oh, daddy, daddy! ” cried Barbara, in a broken 
voice. “ You worked for me, and never let me know 
it.” 

Stephen Royd went softly to the door, and stood 
looking out across the snow-white yard; he was heed¬ 
less of the cold, heedless of the mastiff, who, weary 
of neglect, was fawning to his hand. He could think 
of nothing but this upright gentleman, this luckless 
last but one of all the Cunliffes, whose life was being 
battered out upon the rocks of toil that was too heavy 
for him. Poor the Squire was; Stephen had known 
that ever since the mortgages upon his property were 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 469 


offered him by Lawyer Fairchild—but that his for¬ 
tunes had come down to this seemed almost past be¬ 
lief. Yet not past mending, Royd told himself, as he 
remembered where the mortgage deeds lay at that 
moment. 

Father and daughter, meanwhile, were coming closer 
yet together—closer than in the first days after her 
mother’s death, closer than in the years of intimate 
companionship which followed. Barbara had realised 
the full depth of his devotion she had thought; but 
now the fulness of his sacrifice came home to her. 
She had needed gowns, or gloves, or a new cloak when 
the winter came, and he had given them to her with¬ 
out a murmur of dissent; when her horse grew over- 
old for work—that was only a twelvemonth since—she 
had found the daintiest mare in Marshcotes waiting 
for her one crisp morning at the horsing-steps. In all 
things it had been the same; she had never needed to 
admit a want, for it was supplied before she had well 
realised it. And yet this paltry thirty pounds, which 
she could have saved so easily from what had been 
spent on her—what bitterness of soul, and utter weari¬ 
ness of body had gone to the making of it, up here 
in this quiet room above the laithe. 

“Forgive me; oh, forgive me!” she cried. “I 
never dreamed that you worked for me like this.” 

“Nay, then, how could you?” he said. “’Tis a 
strange occupation—small wonder that you did not 
credit any Cunliffe with it. But you make too much 
of it, Babette—it is nothing—” 

“Will you not end the martyrdom?” Royd broke 


4 7° 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


in, turning from the door. “ You can do so to-night, 
sir, if you will.” 

The Squire glanced at him suspiciously; it was a 
trouble that Barbara should have found him thus, but 
it was gall to think that anyone outside the family 
should be an eye-witness of his shame. “ How mean 
you, lad ? ” he muttered. 

“ Eve brought you a Christmas gift, sir, if you’ll 
accept it—and for old remembrance sake I think you 
will.” 

“ But how is this—I—I do not understand ”—the 
old man stammered, as he opened the sealed packet 
which Royd had handed to him, and found the deeds, 
not of this one mortgage only that had kept him night¬ 
long at the combing-pot, but of every loan which had 
kept his property embarrassed. 

“ I—hoped to have won another gift from you to¬ 
night—and so I brought these in exchange,” said 
Royd, with a strange feeling of shamefacedness, as if 
his offer were in some sort an insult. 

“ You brought me these—I cannot take them. I 
may he poor—ay, you have seen plain proof of that— 
but I take no gift of money at the hands of any man.” 
He would not show surprise that Royd held the mort¬ 
gages, nor question as to how it came about; he was 
bent only on refusing an alms against which his pride 
rebelled. 

“ It is no gift of money, Squire—a few sheets of 
parchment—who but the rusty lawyers would be 
troubled to see them put in the combing-pot? ” 

“ I tell you, no! I’ve good work in me yet, and 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 


47i 


you have paid me well for it, Stephen ”—again that 
shadowy smile which seemed to add a full ten years 
to the face—“ but a gift of this kind— Leave me, 
children. I am well able to work now until the wool 
is finished; for Tim is coming to fetch it, and I shall 
scarce be able to do much at Christmastide.” 

“You will work no more, sir, either to-night or any 
other time,” said Royd, with a firm and kindly hand 
upon the other’s shoulder. 

“ Go, lad, go, I say; I was foolish, weak, and Grip 
gave you the alarm, it seems; but you will take no ad¬ 
vantage—the work must be done—indeed, it must.” 

“Then, sir, you will neither take nor give?” said 
Royd, in a low voice, as Barbara, to put further labour 
out of question, tried to quench the charcoal in the 
combing-pot. 

The Squire glanced at his daughter, to read the way 
of her regard for Stephen; then at Royd. “ And why, 
think ye? Because you fancied her mistress of a 
dowry, and I knew that she would be penniless; be¬ 
cause I would neither show you my poverty, Stephen, 
nor deceive so old a friend; that was my reason, lad. 
I—Stephen, your arm; I am faint yet a little,” he broke 
off. 

The faintness passed, however, at the end of a few 
minutes; for the Squire’s keen will, that had kept him 
working until his last drop of strength was gone, was 
quick to re-assert itself. 

Royd laughed gently. “ A dowry ? I never thought 
of that, Squire, in connection with little Barbara.” 

“ She’s a pauper’s child,” the other went on, with a 


47 2 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


flash of bitterness— a a pauper’s, Stephen, who works 
for a comber’s pittance.” 

“ She’s Squire Cunliffe’s daughter—and she’s Bar¬ 
bara. Give her to me, Squire.” 

The old man looked about him—at the combs, the 
littered floor, the slim, shawled figure busy with the 
charcoal. What he was thinking, Royd never knew; 
but he could see the strained look soften, the hunted 
light go out of the grey eyes. 

“ Deal gently with her, Stephen,” he said, as he took 
Barbara’s hands and put them in Royd’s own. 

“ You will take the mortgage deeds, sir, now? ” said 
Stephen by and by. 

“Not one. I can hold my head up to the last, lad, 
and mean so to do, God helping me to keep my arms 
in use.” 

“ Then you’ll be working only to store up money,” 
laughed the other, “ for none will ever ask you for 
the interest.” 

He took the deeds, and tore them across, and threw 
the fragments into the pot of earthenware, from which 
a light stream of smoke began to rise, in token that the 
charcoal, slow like the Squire himself to let its work¬ 
ing-hour go by, still smouldered on. 

“Come, daddy!” whispered Barbara, taking her 
father’s arm, and neglecting all his protestations that 
at the least he must fold up his late-combed wool in 
readiness for Tim o’ Tab’s. Tim, as it chanced, was 
crossing the mistal yard as they came out, and he 
stopped abruptly, his bright eye glancing round from 
one to the other of the Squire’s companions. 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 473 


“ I mnn axe your pardon, Squire,” he said, with a 
certain awkwardness, “ thowt ye’d be a bit lonesome- 
like on a Christmas morn, an’ I war abroad wi’ th’ 
waits, after supping* at Wynyates, so I says to myseln, 
‘ Tim,’ says I, ‘ ye’d better frame to comb a bit wi’ th’ 
Squire i’stead o’ marlaking knee-deep i’ th’ snow.’ I 
hedn’t looked to find ye thrang wi’ folk, ye see.” 

“ It was a kindly thought of yours, Tim,” said the 
old man; “one of many such—ay, more than I can 
ever manage to repay.” 

“ Nay, now, nay! I’ve done nowt—nobbut carry 
more wool to th’ miln nor I’d iver like to have combed 
myseln. Sakes, but what war yond ? ” he broke off, 
turning suddenly toward the western corner of the 
yard. Barbara turned, too, and felt the Squire’s hand 
tremble on her arm. 

“ Child,” he cried, “ ’tis the Hunter’s Wind. We 
are accursed, I tell you, accursed! And now in our 
glad hour it comes to warn us.” 

Shrewd and blustering, the wind swept up the lane 
and on across the courtyard; and the white snow rose 
and eddied ghost-like in its wake to mark which way 
the Hunter went. 

“ Ay, ’tis he,” muttered Tim o’ Tab’s. “ He war 
alius one to mar a bit o’ happiness, war th’ Hunting 
Squire.” 

Nor was Stephen Royd less ill-at-ease; he had heard 
the Hunter more than once, and he had seen disaster 
follow quickly in the train of his ghostly pack. He 
looked at Barbara—Barbara, who had always been the 
first to blanch at the bare mention of the Wind—and 


474 


MISTRESS BARBARA 


saw that she was smiling up into the Squire’s sad 
face. 

“ His hunting is over and done with—’tis his last 
ride,” she cried. “ Hark, father, hark! Do you not 
hear? ” 

Yes, the old Squire heard. Six of the morn was 
striking from the Marshcotes clock, and with the last 
stroke the Christmas bells rang clear and crisp across 
the moor, drowning the Hunter’s cry, drowning the 
elfin clamour of his hounds. 

“ That is God’s message to us, daddy, if we’ll take 
it so,” said Barbara, after a long silence. 

“ An’ we’ll say gooidwill to men, Mistress Barbara,” 
added Tim, with half-shamed gravity,—“ gooidwill to 
men, an’ a bit o’ ease to th’ Squire fro’ this day for- 
rard.” 

“ It is the Day of Days, friends,” said the Squire, 
with deep reverence. 

Tim o’ Tab’s fumbled with his cap for awhile, then 
doffed it as the casement up above them opened, and 
the Parson’s great rugged head was thrust out into the 
night. 

“You are early abroad, friends!” he cried. “’Tis 
you, Squire, if the voice be aught to go by. And Bar¬ 
bara’s voice now, and Stephen’s, and Grip’s, and my 
own bells coming silver on the morning wind—one 
and all of the old friendly voices would seem to be 
abroad.” 

“ It is wondrous still, Parson—and there’s a touch 
of summer warmth comes whispering across the snow.” 
The old Squire’s voice was quiet, and full, and happy, 


WHAT THE QUIET NIGHT REVEALED 475 


as Parson Horrocks had known it in the days gone by; 
and he breathed a soft thanksgiving that the change 
had come. 

Snow, and fitful breeze, and ripple of the glad Yule 
bells—a sky impenetrable, pricked with faint starlight 
here and there—a sleepy house beneath a sleepy cover¬ 
ing of snow—and far up the moors the voices of men 
singing Christmas in at some lone farmstead. Old 
Wynyates slept, indeed; but at the world-worn heart 
of it there stirred a sense of peace to come. 

And up beyond Lostwithens Marsh, and on toward 
old Wyecollar, the Ghostly Rider swept behind his 
whimpering pack. 















































































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